Back In Business

            This all seems a little strange to me now, but I've had quite a few people ask about my blog recently, and so here I am, writing an email to my mother that will hopefully be successfully posted within the next day or two. It turns out that I can get onto blogger to look at blogs, but there is no way for me to actually post anything while I'm here - thus the use of the middle man. Well, as you can imagine, in the two weeks since I last wrote, a great deal has happened. I spent three wonderful days in Hong Kong seeing sites and eating food. Among those experiences were: seeing Big Buddha, having a Chinese vegetarian meal, getting my fortune at the Po Lin Monastery, walking the paths of the Nan Ling Gardens, watching the late night Symphony of Lights, getting a smoked salmon salad --which ended up being sushi of course - I should have known, going to the ladies market a few blocks from my hotel, and then going to see the beautiful temple.

        Since Hong Kong, things have really only gotten better. On our first day we took a two hour ferry to Zhongshan, and there we went through our first customs check. There was a very...sterile (for lack of a better word) feel there. One of the girls in my group took a picture not knowing that was taboo, and she got pretty scared when the guard in his maroon uniform came up to her yelling at her in Chinese. Luckily we had our Chinese coordinator that could understand what he was saying, and she very sternly turned around and asked "who took a picture." I laughed, having been through something similar in Peru, but the poor girl looked mortified. Now, when she tells the story she always says how the guard "told on her" to Celina our coordinator - it makes it sound like Celina is the top dog in Chinese discipline. From the harbor in Zhongshan we took a bus to get to Kaiyin where our apartment is. I was exhausted, but I kept my eyes wide open the whole time just soaking in the images on the side of the road. On the outskirts of Zhongshan there is extreme poverty. The trash and litter lines the roads. There are modern buildings which stand abandoned with broken windows, and additionally, most of the houses that line the roads have caved in tin ceilings. It was a very humbling sight. In some ways, I wish that I were actually having that version of the Chinese experience - it’s the more real experience, but instead, I am here in a resort style apartment in Kaiyin. We have indoor plumbing and a working western toilet. Aside from not having indoor heating, the place is practically perfect. The view from the balcony - yes, we have a balcony - is gorgeous. They take such good care of this place. The vegetation is more beautiful than I could imagine, and I love the trees here. As you look out you can see the hills covered with trees just folding over themselves. I wish it were less smoggy here because I can only imagine what it all would look like on a clear day.
         Tomorrow will mark my second week in Zhongshan and I have loved almost every minute of it. The only reason I say almost is because on the second day I got here, I happened to go to this amazing Cantonese restaurant, but while I was there I ate an EXTREMELY hot pepper thinking it was a tomato. That night and into the next day I started getting sick. The Chinese people tell me that it's because I ate spicy food when it's dry and cold - apparently I'm the stupid one lol. In the two weeks since then I've gotten over the fever and headaches, but I still have a pretty deep cough which isn't fun. Aside from that however, Zhongshan has been perfect. I teach 6 classes a day and the Bond English Language Kindergarten - four of those classes are kids ages 4-6 and two of those classes are 1 1/2- 3 years old. The little ones are adorable, but it's pretty hard to get them to say anything - let alone English - so I basically just play with them :) As far as behavior is concerned - I cannot believe how amazing they all are. I've taught in Nursery, and these kids are NOTHING like that. They have such a great routine, but the school is such that they are also very free to do as they like. Of all of the kids there is only one that gives anyone any trouble. His name is Kevin and he is in my homeroom class. Until this week, I didn't even know the other teachers had classified him as the trouble maker. He's generally really well behaved in my class as well. Anyway, this week early on, I found out that he lost store twice (this means that he had really bad behavior and got three strikes so he couldn't use his tokens to buy a toy at the end of the day). He came into the office crying because he had to see the principle and my heart melted. It was so hard to see him so upset. The next day he was still upset and even a little ornery - he started behaving really badly and lost store again. Today however he came into school and I was a little worried how things were going to go, but he ran up to me as fast as he could, grabbed my hand and said "I'm being good." The whole day he was a star student. He held my hand everywhere we went and just clung to me - giving me hugs and always looking for my smiles. I love this kid to death, and I'm so sad that Winter camp is almost over because that means that I wont be seeing him again unless he becomes a regular student at the school. The other kids are great too. We have such a wonderful time making each other laugh and I am going to miss them all tremendously.

        Once school finishes tomorrow, we are officially on vacation for two weeks for the Spring Festival - or Chinese New Year as most of you know it. In the south there aren't really any big celebrations like the north. The festival is mostly just a family thing down here, but that being said, the whole town is still decked out in lanterns and bunnies since it's the year of the rabbit. It's fun to see it all - it's very commercialized just like our Christmas. Speaking of Christmas ... I thought they couldn't celebrate it here, but they definitely do. Just so you know :) Well, this is waaay long than I anticipated - hopefully next time I won’t have to catch up on so much stuff and so I'll be able to keep my wordiness to a minimum! I love you all though and I hope you are staying safe.

Aren't my pictures just lovely so far? Seeing as it is Wednesday Jan 12 at 4:45 am and I still have yet to go outside of the walls of an airport, I'm afraid this is all we're gonna get for a while folks. Signs. At least I pick the pretty ones. So, yes, I arrived safely in Hong Kong. My baggage was all here, and in tact (even the carry-on that they took from me!!!); but, alas, all was not well. Because of the snow in Seoul, our flight had to be de-icified before we could leave, and that took a good two hours (thankfully I slept the whole time), but because of our delay, the guy who was supposed to meet us at the airport and take us to our hotel in Kowloon, decided to take off intead. Not only did we not have our ride, but also none of us had any idea where we were supposed to go - let alone how to get there. A few futile calls later to our director back in Provo, we started getting creative. All of the booths and offices in the airport were closed, but we were determined to figure something out - lets just say we weren't very successful! Thankfully, we finally got an email from Casey explaining everything from where we were supposed to go to why our final group member was no where to be found (Poor Andrea was still stranded in Detroit because of weather -on top of that, she also had to deal with the delays and cancelations in the South because she's from Atlanta- whew!) Anyway, even with the new information we were pretty much at a loss for anything to do about it. By perusing some of the scantily available booth literature, we were able to find a map that had the hotel we were looking for on it but there were no taxis, no buses, no transports - no nothing - to take us there. Ok, thats not entirely true, there was a taxi service, but they were going to charge us 100 US$ a piece - um, I don't think so. So, here we are, sleeping on the cold marblish floor of the Hong Kong airport waiting for 7 o'clock when the international world begins anew! I love traveling. I'm gross, and tired, but for some reason it's really an endearing thing - all part of the joys of the experience I guess :)

Welcome to Seoul , South Korea! Its a good thing that I can totally read Korean characters - it made finding my connecting flight really easy ;) Ha! Well, Seoul's airport is BY FAR the nicest airport that I've ever been in. The floors are either tile or wood, they have very sleek black seats that aren't too comfortable, but I might just be saying that since by bum is sore from my interminable flight. I dont think a cushion of jello would even be comfortable at this point. Anyway, the hallways are all lined with designer stores like Coach, D&G, Chanel, Burberry, Gucci, Prada...it's actually a lot more like a mall than an airport.
So, like I said before, the flight to Seoul was extremely long. I was on a 747 jet which was 10 seats accross. That was something new. The largest plane I've ever been on before that was like 6 accross when I went to Peru.. about as big as the planes I take back and forth between Provo and West Chester. I watched a few movies, ate some Korean food like seaweed soup, talked to my Polynesian neighbor, and slept - very little. Now I'm just waiting in the airport for the rest of the group to arrive - hopefully they will soon! My love to all - hopefully I'll be able to say more when I actually get to Hong Kong!

The Point of All This

China. What an interesting place. Its the place, it seems, where everything is made - from our shirts to our shoes and our toys to our screws, and yet we know practically nothing about it. China embodies the essence of mystery. It's this ethereal world where we don't have a very strong grasp of its inner workings - kind of like the MTC. Although there is ample information readily available, no one talks that much about it. This all might sound as though my purpose in going there is to uncover it's mysteries for the general populace, but alas, at least maybe for you, I head for China on January 10th for another purpose. I have the relatively unique opportunity to go to Shiqi in order to teach English to some of the cutest 4-6 year olds around ( I say relatively unique since in actuality, it seems that nearly everyone I've told knows at least one or two other people who knows someone who knew someone who went to China with ILP). Anyway, packing has been a nightmare - before now I wouldn't have believed that it was possible to stuff so much stuff into two average suitcases. The once large spaces shrink incredibly fast, and soon you're creating new ways to stuff underwear and socks into your shoes or waterbottles.I'm sure that my nightmares are far from over since I have been thoroughly warned of what awaits me, but even though it will be hard, but it will be even more rewarding, and that's the whole point. So warnings included, I am excitedly awaiting, what perhaps awaits me as well, in the faraway land of Shiqi, China!! Excited!