laughing traveler

So the past few weeks I have been feeling really guilty about missing church. I have gotten to where I spend most weekends in Longhua with Heidi and our new Chinese friends. So I have to wake up by 6am to catch the bus to get to shekou in time for church. But last Sunday I finally woke up at 6am and made the trip back. I was so glad I did. The Church is called a Fellowship because it is not recognized by the Chinese government so it cannot be called a church. It is more like an underground church that is purely word of mouth. We meet at the gym of an international school and the church is run completely by volunteer lay leaders who take turns giving the message each Sunday. So the church has grown so much that every time I go they literally run out of chairs and it is standing room only in the back. The church elders have been told that it is too many people for the gym and the school does not want us there long term. When they announced this on Sunday he said, “What a great problem to...

So on a great hair day I set out to see the famous rice terrace! Which are beautiful mountains covered in rice fields as far as you can see and little villages where the farmers live. It’s about a 2 hour bus ride to the rice terrace and we were in a group of all Chinese except for one couple from Portugal. So the tour guide spoke in Chinese first and then did a quick translation for us. I don’t remember the guides name, he was no Young-young but still cracked me up. So he tells us, “70% of the money you paid for the tour pays for the bus, so no sleeping! look at all the beautiful mountains everywhere we go and get your moneys worth, when it gets dark then you can sleep!” we unload the huge tour bus and stand around careful not to lose sight of the tour flag (red and yellow just like 10 other tours had!) waiting for a small bus to take us up the whiney mountain. While we are waiting we find my Aussie friend! Her tour was mostly foreigners but she had been standing around waiting about...

Our second day in Guilin we had another full day planed. Colin was able to hook us up with an English tour group for a boat cruise down the Li River to Yangshao. The saying is, “Guilin is the most beautiful place in china, and Yangshao is the most beautiful part of Guilin.” So expectations were high! We were the first ones on the bus at the butt crack of dawn. For some reason the second we picked up another blonde foreigner I was suddenly a social butterfly. China’s blonde obsession had rubbed off on me. There was a guy about our age working at the world expo and taking a short break with his Dad and sister. His name was…. Umm maybe I am not so good at the introductions we referred to him as Mr. Finland. He said he had been in China for about 4months so he had pretty much master the language, I laughed assuming it was a joke. But then he started talking to the driver in prefect Chinese and I was shocked. Especially since it has taken me 2 months to master hello and thank you! It wasn’...

I don’t know where to start. It was simply gorgeous! The city is known for its Osmanthis trees which happened to be in full bloom while we were there which made the whole place smell like perfume. Which made for a rude awakening when we loaded back on to the crowded bus for Shenzhen and realized that it too had a distinctive smell, garbage! So the bus miraculously makes the 12 hour trip in 9 hours so we get there about 8 am which was an awesome surprise. Luckily, the hotel let us check in early and leave our bags at the hotel while we went in search for the only thing that would make it worth walking around in public after only 6 hours of sleep on a bus; McDonald’s breakfast! It was a long walk but even in my morning funk, I have to be excited about the beautiful scenery. Every block there would a clearing through all the large buildings and you would see the wild mountains in the distance. There was an amazing breeze that made it about 20 degrees cooler than the blistering heat in S...

This weekend I have had my feet washed, my back massages, my feet and legs massaged, my hair washed and scalp massage. A girl could get used to this! I met up with a few friends who had done the project last year and we ate a baked spaghetti dinner, not the same in China but they sure tried. We walked around to find a tailor to order some tailor made clothes since my clothes are falling off of me I have lost so much weight the last 2 months here. Everything is fresh here, even the fried noodles are light and not greasy. Plus they don’t sell all the salty snack foods that I crave so I just don’t snack . And I sweat buckets just walking down the street or up 5 flights of stairs to my apartment. But anyway we decided to waste some time since everything is closed for the holiday. We find this hole in the wall place advertising food washes and take a crowded elevator up to another world! This wooden smelly elevator dropped us off in this huge hardwood floored, chandeliered, matching furni...

I am finally settling into the teaching routine. I teach 15 classes a week; 10 classes of 7th graders every week and 10 classes of 8th graders every other week. Each class has 50-60 students so I literally have over a thousand students! After this realization and the first class I quickly decided there is no way I am going to be able to take pictures of each students and memorize their names. So far I have taught 5 classes and only one was awful! And luckily that is an 8th grade class that I only have to see every other week. I walked into the class and this boy in the back row stands up and says, “oh foreign teacher, so beautiful!” in English. So I said, “Thank you.” And the class went crazy! I guess he didn’t think I would hear him or that I wouldn’t understand his English, I don’t know. I thought that thank you was the correct response. But the rest of the class was constant chatter and my angry teacher look apparently needs work. So maybe I introduced myself as Ms. Christy from W...

So 2 days after my internet got hooked up in my apartment it stopped working again. So once again I am at the mercy of friends to relay my group messages. I feel very lucky to have American friends here. It is incredible how much better it feels to laugh with people going through the same thing after a CHINA RAGE day like my last blog. I must tell the story much better in person. Bc on paper everyone said it made them cry which was no my intent! Hanging out with American friends also helps you meet people. I had been in my apartment for 2 weeks and was almost convinced the rest of the rooms were abandoned. I never saw anyone in the hallways or with the doors open, understandable it’s hot as crap! Yet when 3 blondes are laughing all night long my neighbors came to introduce themselves. He was smoking a cigarette, which are seriously less than a $1 a pack here no wonder everyone smokes, outside my room and hear us. Then he went and got his roommate, who woke up my other neighbor who wor...