April 26, 2010
It's been exactly 9 years since I came to China the first time- crazy! So, I've kind of been slacking lately and so I haven't sent an update about the last 3 weeks, right? I'm now going to repent and try to do better; I'll try and cover it all this time. Anyway, two weeks ago on Sunday Sam and I traveled to Shuangpai with Cierra and Shelby so Sam could try to fix their computer (Nikki wanted to stay home and try to talk to her dad and the rest of her family). Well, it turns out that he couldn't really fix it- instead he broke Cierra's sink handle off; good thing they don't usually use that one so it's not too big of a deal. We also took a bunch of time to take the color code test (Shelby and Cierra both took it, and then I did too… and after I took it Sam and Shelby reanswered the questions for me, with almost the same results). We then talked and proceeded to bed thereafter; the next morning the others all left to go buy a screwdriver so Sam could actually try fixing it better. I didn't go with them because they thought I was asleep and didn't want to wake me up; I wasn't actually asleep, but I was curious as to whether they'd wake me up or not- and there was someone playing the piano and I was quite content to listen to that and read for a little bit. Anyways, they ended up not being able to fix the computer then we watched August Rush (I had forgotten just how much I love that movie, which is rather tragic because I really do love it a lot).
Later on that week, on Thursday, the three of us went to see the University and an awesome lit-up bridge that leads to an island in the middle of the river. On Saturday, Luke, Mr. Zhou, and some of the school leaders had a banquet lunch thing with all of us laowai (it means foreigners… literally outsiders) where we had lots of rather interesting dishes to choose from. Then we took everyone to this haunted amusement park (it looks haunted because it's pretty run down and there aren't a lot of people there- though that could've just been because it was pretty rainy). We also went to this really awesome pagoda and the bridge. That week I ended up teaching about the difference between a few different words (like sit, set; speak, talk; etc)- it was pretty fun, they especially liked playing the fly swatter game (you have to "swat" at the correct word on the board); some of them really got into it. Sometimes they'd get a boy and a girl up there and everyone would cheer or laugh which led me to believe they were couples- especially when I heard some of the kids in one of my class start humming or singing the wedding march. That weekend we went up to Dong'an; that was a lot of fun. We met up with the girls from Longhui as well so we had a bigger group than normal and it was a lot of fun seeing them. Anyway, we watched Sherlock Holmes, had a Lays taste testing adventure (they have really strange flavors of chips here… including blueberry, cherry tomato, seaweed, and lots of others that really aren't that great tasting), and had an awesome American food lunch. Sam made some potato soup, Matt and Kristal made mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing, Nora and Alyssa made some vegetable scrambled eggs, Mariah and Savanna made s'mores, and Nikki and I made some Reese's dessert bars. It was marvelous.
Mariah and Savanna came back with us on Sunday because they didn't have any classes that week due to the May holiday. Monday the four of us girls went looking for some stuff we could get for Cierra's birthday (Tuesday). We got some cake, a big bottle of her favorite juice, and a wooden fish wind chime. We also decorated Nikki's apartment and the box that the wind chime came in (each of us decorated one side) so it looked like wrapping paper. We ended up having piñatas too! Shelby and Cierra came in Tuesday night and we had an awesome time. After our "party" stuff we went out to the island and lit off Chinese lanterns. I ended up jamming my knee or something, so I was a bit slow and in pain, but it was fun nonetheless.
Early Thursday morning (really early, like 6) we left to go to the train station, and then took a train to Shaoyang. From there we took a bus to Longhui so that Savanna and Mariah could make sure they had all their stuff. Then we took buses to Huaihua and then Fenghuang. We had a bit of an adventure in Fenghuang because we had no idea where to go to find our hostel. Sam had a different one, so he left and we had to try to find our own way. We tried getting a taxi to where the instructions said (some hotel), but the instructions were in English so the driver didn't understand. Luckily, there was a guy from Seattle there and he helped us with the taxi. Well, we didn't see our hostel anywhere nearby so we went in to see if they could help us… they didn't speak any English but there was some random guy who did. He helped us talk to the hotel and then they called our hostel for us and we got instructions about how to get to the hostel. So, we followed the instructions not realizing there was a lower part under the big bridge we found- thus we were yet again lost. Another lady came to find us and beckoned us to follow her even after we asked her where we need to go. She led us to her hotel where they pulled a lady off the street who spoke English to ask if we had a reservation. We told them that we were looking for our hostel and the lady shooed us out the door and kind of pointed in the opposite direction of where we came from. We followed her "pointing" and passed some lady by some buses who also tried helping us- though she didn't speak English. She talked to the hostel and they sent someone to come get us, but then two other ladies came up to us and tried to get us to stay in their hotel (they spoke English). After we explained that we had a place already, they let us wait in the lobby and told the guy where to go. We finally got to our hostel and got settled in, and then we went to get dinner and explore. The next morning we actually met up with Jacob and his family, which was awesome and then got on another bus to Zhangjiajie City; there we met up with Alyssa and she joined us for the rest of the trip.
The next morning we left to Zhangjiajie Villiage National Park, which is INCREDIBLE, by the way, on yet another bus. On the bus we met a guy who had a place we could stay, and though at first he said we would have to pay 80 Yuan each per night, after Sam talked to him and told him we're teachers and stuff like that he dropped his price to 65 Yuan each; that's a really good price, especially considering that we didn't have a place to stay and it was during May holiday. Well, he took us to the park entrance, where we bought our 248-Yuan entrance fee cards and got thumb printed with our card, and we started walking through. It turns out his place was inside the park- he said it was about an hour and a half walk. As we went through, he was basically our tour guide and showed us all of the cool rocks and stuff. Oh, ps- if you've seen the movie Avatar, the mountains that are floating in the air that they fly up to and stuff are actually based off of the mountains in Zhangjiajie. They're absolutely amazing… and really tall. The reason that I mention them being tall, since most actual mountains tend to be pretty tall, is that we had to climb up stairs to the very top of said mountains because that's where this guy's place was at. Let's just say that all of us were very tired and sore by the end of this 4-5 hour hike (my knee didn't help my situation any), but when we got to the top and could look out at everything it was worth it.
We got to see a lot of really amazing views from up there and it was just a really fantastic place. On Sunday we had to go back down the mountain (which was again rather difficult because we had to keep ourselves going down stairs but still fighting gravity) and ended up in another city where we took a taxi to the train station and took a sleeper train to Changsha. We got to Changsha at 6:30 am then took another bus back to Lingling. It was definitely a pretty long day but it was really nice to get home. The holiday was so amazing and I'm definitely glad that I had the opportunity to go.
China has had its difficulties and things like that, but the experiences and people I have met are so incredible that it drowns out the negative moments. This week the class times changed in the afternoon and I didn't find out until I was telling them that class was over and then they said "No, class times changed." And I just found a bat hanging on my curtain in the living room… I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet but it's sleeping for the time being, so I'll figure it out later. Anyway, I'm gonna call this good for now. Sorry it took so long for me to write all of this. Until next time… Zaijian!
