5/15-5/17

Wednesday 5/15:

Wednesday morning I woke up at 4:30am to the sound of what I like to call mockingjays. I can't remember what everyone else calls them but they look like mockingjays to me and it makes me less annoyed at them if I think of them as fictional animals. I remembered Sam saying that the sun rises around 5am and he has pointed out before that if I wake up that early I should just try staying awake so that's what I did. I headed up on the roof and watched what has now made one of the top 5 sunrises of my life. It comes up behind mountains so you could see the perfect line of orange breaking the crest and eventually the entire beautiful sun. That's a bonus to living somewhere that the air's so dirty-- most days you can look straight at the sun.

Once the sun was up for the day I headed down to the track and ran a couple miles while one of the guards swept water off the train from rain a day or two before. He doesn't speak English and I don't speak Chinese so it was kinda fun having him count laps and laugh at me completely out of breath. I finished about the time the sunlight hit the track and headed back up 280 stairs (I think that's what we counted a few months back) and showered and read a couple talks out of the Ensign I brought before I headed to breakfast that I haven't been awake early enough for in about 2 months. They had "scones" for breakfast which, when I used to get up early enough to go, was the breakfast I always missed on the days I slept in so I was excited to finally try them. They tasted pretty decent once I put honey on them but I was still starving afterward.

Back at the dorms I went back to reading and fell asleep on the couch for a while until Luke came in and woke me up so I moved back to my bed an slept for another hour until Melanie woke up.

We went to the beach with Sam and ran into another wedding photo shoot. I don't think I've ever been to the beach without someone getting wedding pictures taken there. Probably a place a photography agency uses. We even though we saw a nude photo shoot and walked over to investigate but it turned out that she was wearing a bikini. Shucks.

We got back late and missed lunch and had to head straight to inservice where they informed us that even though we had 5 weeks left we were going to get a head start on doing inventory and end-of-the-year cleaning. Melanie, Mikelle, and I got assigned to inventory and clean the kitchen which seemed pointless because even the amount of dishes change every day because people stash them in their rooms plus there was no way it was staying clean for a month, let alone a day. Whatever.

Since I missed lunch I made my last package of American noodles and while they were cooking put together the idea that not only do moon cycles affect the water level for high or low tide but they change the water level depending on where you're at in the cycle during the month. That never occurred to me before because I've never stayed by the ocean long enough to notice.

A bunch of people went into town that evening so I took the quiet time to read Eat, Pray, Love and was visited by Geoff and Sam when they got back. They bought me a Chinese version of Monopoly Deal that has all the text in English and Chinese and has different names for some of the properties. Pretty cool.

Thursday 5/16:

Thursday I woke up for breakfast again and it was back to the basic rice porridge, boiled egg, and mento but this time they also had this bean/root stuff that was pretty decent. I was sore from running the day before so I just showered and read my Ensign some more before Sam told me that one of the piano rooms was open. They have 4 or 5 pianos here but I never know when the rooms are unlocked so we can use them to I took the opportunity to use the piano music I hauled here all the way from America. I got to practice for about an hour before they needed the rooms for students but it was really nice to have a peaceful hour of music again. I didn't realize how much I missed playing instruments. The only thing though is that some of the students were looking at my music and Lely from my 5^th grade class said my music was really easy. I was told by a 12-year-old that my music was easy. I guess that's what you get for comparing yourself to China.

I spent the rest of the morning tanning on the roof. That's one of the goals on my list that I want to get done before I come home from China-- get a tan. I probably should have been more specific by saying "get a nice looking tan" because I've somewhat of a tan started but it's uh.. interesting. I only have tankinis to tan in here and ya really can't strip down under that without taking major risks so I'm getting some pretty bad lines.

For lunch they fed us something new!!! It was this green bean mixture with onions and beef and it was delicious. Apparently green beans are now in season and for that I am very happy because I get tired of eating the same food sometimes. After lunch was a meeting with Ella and Kelly informing us about the tug-of-war competition on Monday. They said they were going to have 30 teachers competing again our 20. I thought it was nice that at least this time when they cheat they're giving us a heads up. Also, most of the ILP teachers weigh twice as much as the Chinese teachers so it shouldn't be a big deal to have 10 more.

The topic for class for the week was describing people so for one of the lessons that day I had the kids draw someone and then describe them. Ex: My girl has brown hair and green eyes. She is wearing a yellow shirt and black pants. Tall, short, dimples, beard, glasses.. those sorts of things. Walter, my aggressive 4^th grader, drew someone with a bloody mace. What's sad about that is such drawings are a completely normal occurrence in class. I am mind blown by how violent my kids are an how accepted violence is in their society/culture here.

Our second block of classes we had an arm wrestling competition which Melanie had done in her 3^rd grade classes and it had worked out well. Not so in mine. The objective of the lesson was to teach them phrases like "I am the winner." "I am the loser." "I beat you." I got first place." … those sorts of things. They just went psycho. Very stressful for Miss Amanda.

Thursday night has become designated go-in-town-for-dinner night so Melanie, Mikelle and I went to get noodles but at the last minute Melanie wanted chicken instead so we got that. Meh.. Not a huge fan. I wasn't super happy about the change but it's not worth arguing or making a big deal out of things. We found a brand new bakery and bought these strawberry shortcake cones that were really good, at least they would have been if I liked whipped cream :) At our 10 yuan stand on the night market we found these bright pink shirts that say, "Nobody Gives A Love" which I'm head over heels in love with but am saving to wear at home and not ruin here. The DVD shop was closed for some reason which was probably good because it eats our money and has become the obsession of many people in our group. On the way out of the night market I bought... wait for it.......JELLYFISH! It was 10 yuan (less than $2) for 3 little jellyfish in a container and I've now fulfilled my dream of owning jellyfish.

On the bus on the way back there were at least 70 people standing up in the aisles, not including those sitting down. I managed to lick Melanie's elbow while she wasn't looking and prove to her that you can't feel it if you don't know it's happening. She wasn't super impressed. That night Melanie and Jay threw out the idea of going to Shanghai but they need a third person to go but I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do for our last vacation.

Friday 5/17:

Friday morning I laid in bed watching my jellyfish swim around for half an hour instead of getting up and showering like I had planned. They're quite relaxing and interesting to watch. For class we reviewed their spelling words for the week and then took the test. Susan came in for observations during this time and my children were angels which was really nice to feel in control of everything that was going on during an observation and feel good about it. I let both classes play Jeopardy for the remainder of class which they really really love and I love because it's easy for me, they have fun, and they still learn.

That afternoon there were kindergarden tours for incoming students so the school wanted us to make ourselves visible so the parents knew they had Americans teaching at their school and weren't just copy/pasting our faces into their brochures. Therefore, when classes ended for me that morning I spent the next hour chilling outside appreciating the beautiful day and working on lesson plans for the next week.

I still had a little time left before lunch so I cleaned my room for a while and then headed downstairs. After lunch I showered and then headed downstairs to practice the Footloose dance for the end of the year performance that we were starred in. It was pretty warm out in the sun and ended up being kinda pointless for me to shower but 2 hours later they finally let us leave. I was tired of looking like I just got out of bed so I tried so do my hair the way I did for Halloween a couple years ago when I was Mrs. Peacock but it failed epically. Life just doesn't work as well here in China.

Sam had to teach a class that afternoon for the district people to watch but when he finished he came hung out in my room and we tried to figure out what kind of jellies I owned. The closest we found was the cannonball jellyfish but the internet is far less than average here so I couldn't search it properly. I hung out with Luke for a while and he commented on how I should do my hair which made me laugh because I'd just done it.

On the weekends we eat on a different floor of the cafeteria since most of the kids go home and the food was super gross so I went to the next window over and got good food. I don't know why they had different food at the other window, probably because it was all left-overs, but the boys were jealous when they saw my plate. After dinner I went down the street with Luke and Sam. Sam and I dropped off some letters at the Post Office and then met Luke back at the Jia Jia Yue where I treated myself to a couple of these wonderful banana popsicles I recently discovered that taste like Creamies and are only 1 yuan.

I've been wanting to watch all the Star Wars movies for several months so I bought them at the DVD shop and we watched the first one that night. It wasn't as good as I remembered it was when I watched when it came out ~15 years ago but I'm glad I got to see it again. After it ended I sat in the common room and talked to Kristen while Sam half-slept on the couch. I'm trying really hard to be friends with her because I've always really liked her but just have jealousy issues.

Back in my room I talked to Melanie for a while and then worked on a blog post I wanted to write. I only got to the point of writing down bullet points but once I'm caught up on journaling I do hope to actually write it. 

5/2-5/14

Thursday 5/2:

Thursday morning I woke up a good half hour or more before everyone and couldn't go back to sleep so I stared at the ceiling for a while and read some more scriptures on Sam's phone before people started waking up. We were supposed to have a van pick us up from the hostel at 8:20 to head to the Gudong waterfall so we all waited downstairs on the couches looking at ecards on Instagram and playing with Pizza until the bus showed up late at 9. Welcome to China.

I was still exhausted so on the ride I somehow managed to almost fall asleep on Mikelle's shoulder when Sam poked my leg to inform me of his latest theory about the mountains- that they are God's whack-a-mole game. I have no idea where he gets these theories.. but they make me laugh.

The van stopped at a random place in Gudong with some vendors set up for shopping and we got to walk along the Li River and could see where the water level had gotten 8-10 feet higher during the storm than it was at the moment and I'm sure even then it was still higher than usual. I couldn't believe how much the river had risen but you could see the debris from the flood in the trees and marks on the buildings up to where the water level had been.

After that we finally headed to the Gudong waterfall which had more and better Chinglish than I've seen anywhere else. In addition to the main signs they had phrases on all the trash cans and my favorite one said, "Though I'm ugly, I'm gentle and good at doing housework, such as collecting the wastes." Nice woman/wife joke, ya? It wasn't until we were at the waterfall that I realized how unbelievably pissed off half of our group was. Jay was still sick so she was in a really bad mood from that combined with who knows what else, Melanie was mad at.. the world?, and Geoff was upset because he felt like everyone was fighting with him. I'm not sure it's possible to find 3 people who were less appealing to be around. However, Mikelle, Sam and I had an incredible time on vacation and were still having lots of fun.

We had to buy gear to climb up the waterfall which included a helmet, a dry pouch for valuables, and straw sandals. The climb up the first waterfall was probably about 100 feet but then that was it and they took our helmets back. It was fun but I was expecting more. There were stairs/routes to climb the other levels of the waterfall but everything was still super flooded from the rain so they wouldn't let us climb the rest. There was a little pavilion with a bench at the top that was under about 4 inches of water that I assume is usually quite dry.

It was a really beautiful area and a nice climb even though we didn't get to climb in the actual waterfall for the remainder of the hike. I saw my first millipede and counted 94 legs on one side. Pretty sure that's a little inaccurate. We chose the option of paying to zip line part way down the mountain and it was totally worth it. Not sure how safe it was but hey it's China! We also got to walk across a hanging bridge which was breathtaking and absolutely incredible.

We ate lunch down at the bottom before we got back in the van to drive to Yangshuo and Sam was kind enough to stand there and order the different things to put in the egg noodles we got. They were only 8 yuan and ended up being really good. We ran out of time to eat and ended up eating them in our laps on trash bags in the back of the van on the drive back. They don't usually have take-out boxes here. They just throw the food straight in a bag. Kinda weirded me out when I first got here but now I really like it. On the drive back we realized we were going the wrong direction and talked to the driver and a few minutes later they pulled off the road and they put us on another random bus heading the right direction back to Guilin. On our walk to a different hostel than we had been at a couple days ago we passed the street that had been flooded and observed that the streets were back to normal. The hostel we stayed in was super nice. They had curtains around the bunk beds that you could shut so you didn't disturb your neighbor and they had a shower curtain in the bathroom!! I haven't see one of those since I got here. There was a nice courtyard right outside our room and the girls at the desk spoke perfect English. One of them was actually practicing speaking English with a British accent. Above the community computers they had painted "Google is watching you" on the wall which gave me a good laugh. They even had a little movie room full of cushions with a TV and Wii.

But here's where things get... meh. Worse than meh.

Jay was still feeling really sick still so Melanie called her dad (who is a doctor) and he diagnosed Jay over the phone with (probably) pneumonia. Jay wanted to go to the hospital and asked Melanie to go with her and then needed 1 more person. (ILP rules-- groups of 3 or more on vacation). The 4 of us girls were in a room together and were trying to figure out what to do and Sam walked by and hear us talking and joined in. Geoff showed up later and thought we were purposefully excluding him and got in a big fight with Melanie about diagnosing people over the phone and whether Jay should go to the hospital or not. It got super tense and it ended up being Jay, Melanie, and Sam going to the hospital together.

Mikelle and I decided to take the time they were gone to get dressed up for the night. She took the opportunity with our nice bathroom and shower curtain to shower and clean up and while she was in the shower I pulled Geoff aside and talked to him. I tried to calm things down and help relieve some of the anger and stress and maybe made a little bit of progress but eventually gave up. Mikelle and I did each other's eyebrows and I took it upon myself to provide commentary for each hair she pulled out. It started with, "ouch! Ouch! Ouch!!" and then turned into various answers to the question, "How are you?" "Fantastic! Wonderful! Horrible! I'm fine.. and how are you?" Let's just say we were laughing too much to make much progress for a while. We eventually got all beautified and we borrowed a hair dryer and I got to blow dry my hair for the first time in 3-ish months. I even put on make-up and wore one of my new dresses. We were lookin' pretty hott. The three of us walked across the street to this awesome big outdoor mall and ordered 2 pizzas. We had to wait half an hour for them which was kinda awkward since Geoff was still mad but we all broke out a smile when a Chinese guy checked us out and his wife hit him for it. The pizza was pretty good and it was nice to have a break from bad Chinese food and/or packaged convenience store food.

I was hoping the other 3 would be back to the hostel by the time we got back but they weren't so we played Texas Holdem and Headbandz in the lobby for a while and then retreated to isolating ourselves on our computers while we waited. And waited. And waited. The hostel did have a VPN though so one of the wireless networks allowed me to get on Facebook and Blogger which was a nice little miracle.

About 5 hours in I started getting really worried but we had no way to contact them. I sent them emails and Geoff posted a message on Instagram in hopes that they would see it. No taquito. Or burrito. Or cigar. Whatever that phrase is.. Point is, didn't work. It hit almost midnight and I was beyond worried and tired and refused to go to sleep before I knew they were back and everything was okay. Mikelle and I put in Crazy, Stupid, Love which is always hit or miss for me but for that night it was a nice distraction. We decided if they hadn't come back before the end of the movie we were just going to go to the hospital ourselves and find them. Melanie walked in half-way through and demanded the key to our room. No "hey, you waited up" or "Jay's okay".. just angry Melanie so we handed over the key and went to find Sam to see what had happened. He said Jay had a severe case of bronchitis, almost to the point of pneumonia. There was the possibility that she had the bird flu and they tried to get her to stay in the hospital for 3 days while they observed her but our train left early the next morning so that just wasn't gonna happen. Mostly they'd just been sitting around for a long time and she'd gotten x-rays and a CAT scan done and then they sent her back with a bunch of medicine.

I tried to go to bed but Mikelle was talking to her family on the phone and Jay kept coughing so I made sure my stuff was packed up and went out to the lobby to hang out with Sam and Geoff and pull an all-nighter. I've had the idea for a while now that I'd like to own a hostel some day and Sam likes the idea of doing that too so we started a list of things that make a great hostel. We also played the game Golf for a little while but then Geoff went to bed. Sam looked at pictures from the trip while I caught up on journaling (I hate that I always write about doing that yet I'm still a month behind). We got kicked out around 3-3:30am so I spent a while sitting on my bed uploading pictures from the trip to my laptop. I gave in to sleep at 4 and then woke up at 5 to head to the train station.

Friday 5/3:

Friday I woke up at 5 after my hour nap and packed up a couple last things and headed out the door for the train station. We were conveniently close by so I walked there with Sam and Geoff while the other 3 girls took a taxi because Jay was sick. Our train left at 7:12 and I was asleep before it even pulled out of the station. I woke up around noon, braved the squatter, and then headed back to our area to discover that everyone else was still sleeping so I stared out the window for a while and then went back to sleep until 4. Normally this is a total waste of the day but we're on this train until Sunday morning except for a break in Jinan so it was nice to kill that big of a chunk of time with sleeping. Problem is its now 10:20 and I'm starting to worry about sleeping through the night. [Don't you like how I was writing this like is was in the past but I actually wrote this post the day it happened? Not confusing at all.]

When I woke up this afternoon I was quite worried that I had pink eye because one eye kept watering and was kinda puffy and Pizza (the kitten from the hostel in Yangshuo) had pink eye. My eye's not pink at all though so I really don't know what's wrong. Jay gave me a makeup remover wipe and had me take off my mascara (which I've never actually done in my life) and then we got one of my tank-tops wet with boiling hot water that's provided on the train and laid that on my face for a good 20 minutes. It helped make me feel better about it but my eye is still freaking out.

Once we did our best at being our own doctors in China I made my last package of instant potatoes (sad day!!) and ate them while I read a little bit in a special journal I have and added a new entry. Later I made Jay some Ramen and then wrote some more for one of my blogs. At that point I decided it was time to get out of my bed and bug Sam who was reading the 7 Principles of Marriage book I brought. The beds on this train are even smaller than usual and you can't sit up on the upper bunks so its pretty tight but we managed and ended up chatting about my study abroad to the U.K. and scholarships and grades in high school and our favorite parts of the trip.

Being wedged on the same bed started some gossip so I moved back down to my bed and ended up talking to Jay for a while before it was bedtime and the train turned off the lights (9:40 pm) and now here I am, catching up on journaling once again. I figure that I still have another full day on the train and should be able to get all caught up by then. [That definitely didn't happen.]

Saturday: 5/4:

Saturday morning I woke up to Melanie buying an entire breakfast meal just to eat the mento with honey. Made me laugh. Mikelle, Sam, and I spent the morning playing Yahtzee (we played a variation where you fill in 2 columns at one time) and Phase 10 (I kicked everyone's trash) and then took a break to eat some food (mhmm... Chinese Ramen). Right before we got off in Jinan I was playing Solitaire on my phone which Sam titled 'cheater Solitaire' because I have it set to draw only 1 at a time instead of 3. We paralleled Solitaire with dating and Sam commented that whether you're playing 3 cards at a time or only 1, you're still playing Solitaire. He asked Crista (Crista, Rachelle, and Sam girl were also on the train with us) what him playing 3 cards at a time said about his personality and she responded, "You're a slut." I got a good laugh out of that.

We had all afternoon/evening in Jinan to kill before we got on another train late that night so we went to Daming (Da Ming, not damning) Lake which was quite picturesque and ran into a few girls dressed up as legit anime characters. We were there until sunset and then took a bus to the mall where we went to.. *drumroll*...........Walmart!! That's right, there's a Walmart in Jinan and Guilin here in China. I even bought myself some mouthwash which I had to leave behind in America and have been quite enjoying the past couple weeks. Afterwards we wanted to see the new Iron Man movie and discovered that the theater was on the floor above Walmart (Walmart was 2^nd and 3^rd, movie theater was 4^th). They were all sold out for the shows playing before we had to be back to the train station so that plan failed. We headed back to the train station and Mikelle, Sam and I sat outside on the dirty ground and talked for a couple hours while the 3 party poopers charged their electronic devices inside a hotel lobby. It was really beautiful outside, especially after 2 months of freezing weather in Weihai.

Once we got on the train I could barely stay awake long enough to give the train guy my ticket and then I had my music in which Sam was listening to with me. I woke up about an hour later and realized I hadn't even made it through 2 songs. Sam was asleep too so I turned it off and went right back to sleep.

Sunday 5/5:

Sunday morning I woke up to the ticket man giving our tickets back and spent all morning laying in bed talking to Sam whose bunk was back to back with mine again. It turned out that our train got to Weihai 1.5 hours earlier than we expected but since I hadn't moved off my bunk since we got on the train all my stuff was still all packed up and ready to go. Sam, Mikelle, and I met Joe and he drove us back to the school in his taxi. He's possibly my favorite Chinese person I've met outside of school since I got here. He spoke English really well and it was really fun to talk to him on the drive back home. I wish we could keep him as our permanent driver.

We got back around 10am and discovered that the water was completely shut off so I couldn't wash off my 3 days of nasty. Sam called in to church on Skype so I went to "church" dirty, wearing ripped jeans and a 4-5 day old t-shirt. Since we'd just gotten back we didn't have much food so we used banana bread for the sacrament. It was definitely the most un-church-like church I've ever attended but I've discovered here that church is as spiritual as you want it to be, even if you're on Skype, sitting on a couch in a dirty common room in a country with religious restrictions wearing gross clothes, smelling horrible, and eating banana bread.

When church ended we headed downstairs for lunch and when we got back the water was working again so I took a quick shower and then went to the beach with Sam and Geoff. When we left on vacation it was still winter here. When we came back it was summer. I feel like we missed the week of spring. Anyway, it was a beautiful, perfect day at the beach and we laid out to tan for a while until 8 Chinese boys our age came to bug me to take pictures with them and kept persisting saying, "Come on baby..." until I got up and took pictures with all of them in my swimsuit. The best part was I had taken out my contacts during church because my eyes hurt really bad (remember the possible pink eye from the cat?) and switched to my glasses which I was not wearing on the beach so I couldn't even see them properly. Those boys ended up following us around for the next hour or two until we left. In that time we played in the water for a little while and Sam and Geoff made sure to pick me up and dunk me in that yummy China water. I also got covered up in sand and turned into a mermaid but I kept laughing and making the sand crumble.

Back home I spent quite a while trying to wash sand out of every area of my body (Sam even shoved sand in my belly button) which took a while but it was nice to be properly clean for the first time in quite a few days. Sam and I watched Saturday afternoon conference, took a break for dinner, and then finally finished watching conference (it only took us a month!).

That night Elementary teachers gathered together with our new schedules to figure out how things were going to work with incorporating Geoff (P.S.- Geoff got switched to Elementary and Cherish is teaching Primary) and Bayli into our schedules. I don't have to coordinate too much because except for 1 class period, either Geoff or Bayli take the same kids every day so I basically just changed to a smaller class size. We were supposed to give Geoff and Bayli our lower level kids to work with but Luke wanted to send the smartest kids from his 5^th grade class. I told him no and he kept arguing so I said we'd figure it out later.

Monday 5/6:

I really don't remember what happened Monday because I only wrote down 2 bullet points. That night Jay came in and told us her hospital story. BTW-- Jay went to the hospital again when we got home. It was a huge event of miscommunication but here's the SparkNotes version-- Jay felt super sick in the middle of the night, wanted meds, talked to her mom on Skype, mom got unnecessarily involved and called the ILP office in Utah, ILP called the head teachers, head teachers took Jay to the hospital, they sent her back to the school clinic which wouldn't let her stay on campus because they thought she might have bird flu, went back to the hospital and did a million tests, they wanted to observe her for a week in case she had bird flu, political issues that involved ILP and the embassy, everyone overreacted and Jay came back with some pills in hand and was fine. And she had to poop in a cup. I had a video of her telling us about this poop event but failed to upload it before my camera was stolen (oops!! spoiler alert! Toooo late.) Apparently they had to do a poop test so they handed her a tiny cup with a handle on it and she had to go in a random closet and fill it up over the squatter. While she trying to figure out just how to hold the cup and accomplish this task, a Chinese woman opened the door to get supplies out of the closet and discovered Jay with her pants down squatting. Once Jay finished she exited to discover that the woman was still standing outside the door waiting and then she then had to carefully carry her not-so-solid poop cup across the hospital dodging random scooters driving through at which point she finally arrived at the lab and just stood there and held it for a minute and finally walked up to a woman and pointed to it asking "nali?" (where) and then set it down on the table. To sum up this dramatic story (Jay's stories are usually wonderfully entertaining and dramatic) she finished with, "Moral of the story: just don't get bird flu 'cause weird freakin' things happen to you."

Following this retell of the event, we had an intense discussion on the logistics of properly catching diarrhea. BTW- any filter I might have had back home had since been eliminated.

That was the first bullet point.

Second bullet point:

Melanie and I watched Once Upon a Time. It was really stupid again. Don't remember what happened, just that it was stupid. Sam watched it with us a few weeks back and that was the first dumb one we'd watched and we're convinced he cursed it for the rest of the season.

The end.

Tuesday 5/7:

Tuesday morning Sam was subbing for Jay so I slept in for the first time in a while. Melanie jokingly commented on how it was interesting that I just happened to sleep in on the same morning Sam was gone. Sleeping in represented the remainder of my day pretty well. I cleaned my room for about an hour before lunch and other than teaching I really didn't do much the rest of the day. That night I went down to Sam and Luke's room to talk to Luke and discovered that Sam had fallen asleep reading a book on his bed so I grabbed my camera from my room and recorded me waking him up. Yelling his name didn't work so I had to start kicking his bed and the last shot in the video is a terrified look on his face the moment he woke up. I felt really bad but Melanie thought it was hilarious. That video also disappeared with my camera.

While I was sitting in there waiting for Luke I was getting ready to leave and just go to bed but I heard a cat in the hallway (I have no idea why they feel the need to wander around all the way up on the 5^th floor when they live outside) and figured it would look bad if I walked out of Sam's room with just the two of us in there when people came out in the hall to investigate the cat noise so I stayed in the room. It turned out that the head teachers were the ones who came out to investigate and Luke showed up right as the cat was chased away. They stood right outside the door for a while talking and when Luke came in I motioned for him to not say anything about me being in there. He shut the door without saying anything and was talking to Sam and I about something when the head teachers knocked on the door and asked if anyone else was in there with the boys. Yay I finally got in trouble for breaking ILP rules. After I had gone back in my room Alicia knocked on the door and said I needed to not be alone with Sam. So really... I should have just left in the first place when I was planning on it. The part that bugs me is that they must have been outside the door listening to Luke talk to us because it was a good 2 minutes after he came back in the room before they knocked and asked if anyone else was in there.

No freakin' privacy.

Wednesday 5/8:

Wednesday was Geoff's birthday and I decided to try making a decent breakfast with the pancake mix I had bought at the Korean store. The kitchen was really really gross so I spent about an hour cleaning it (which is really sad because it's not that big) and then attempted a pancake in a wok on a hot plate. It really doesn't work at all. I started yelling at it so Sam came in and tried to get it to work but also gave up. We ended up pouring some batter on a plate and cooking it in the microwave. Totally works.

The rest of the morning I read a letter Sam had written to me that I found on his laptop and then talked to him until lunch.

The day went downhill from there and I lost it. "It" being any sort of composure and sanity. I hit a wall of total exhaustion about the time classes started and ended up letting my kids watch Finding Nemo for class. On the way back to the dorms after class Luke told me about drama going on between Daguanghua and ILP and the head teachers. *sigh* We ran into Bayli outside of the dorm building and my introduction was her giving me a big hug and I decided I liked her. Luke told me she was a dancer in the first High School Musical movie and later Melanie was able to find her in the dance in the gym at the end.

I ditched dinner for the first time since I got here and made a package of American noodles I had brought with me and ate it up on the roof while I wrote some notes down from my conversation with Sam earlier that morning. While I was writing Geoff came and found me and talked to me for a while. The receipt I had been writing on blew off the roof and into the construction area just outside of the school fence which was a little was a little bit of a problem if any ILP people found it because it would have obviously been identified as mine with the AZ address printed on it.

Geoff went downtown with a group for his birthday and I went downstairs and climbed up a dirt slope into the construction site (which I found out later people were watching me do in the kitchen), retrieved my receipt, and then crawled between a section of temporary fence back on campus. I spent the rest of the night back up on the roof hiding and writing all the things I was freaking about down so I didn't have to worry about them anymore. My conversation with Sam, getting in trouble with the head teachers, and (surprise!) the fact that other people here had discovered and were reading my blog with all the insults and secrets I don't mind sharing with America but don't want told in China. I had posted all of this information on my blog figuring that since you need a VPN to get on Blogger in China and only a few people here have one that I was probably safe, especially because I write so freakin' much and I don't know why you would spend your free time here reading my journal entires. Anyway, that's why I made it private for a while. I probably overdid the freakout but sometimes I think it's fair that I get to let it all out instead of holding it in and pretending things are okay.

Thursday 5/9:

Thursday I was sleepy all morning and moved from my bed to the couch to Luke's bed and still couldn't wake up properly. Okay let's be honest, I chose to not wake up properly. I watched a conference talk with Sam (from the priesthood session I believe) about wearing the armor of God and we talked for a while about how we actually do that. Also about how we like that instead of just saying don't do this, don't do this, don't do this... much of what is being taught now are positive things that we should be working toward and the doctrines behind them.

After classes Melanie, Mikelle, Sam and I went downtown a got dinner at the chicken place and then stopped at the big Jia Jia Yue to pick up some provisions to make Mexican food. It was kinda fun trying to find what we needed and making various substitutes. They eat these big fat bugs here that kinda look like a cocooned cockroach and they had a big box of them sitting in the produce section still alive and moving around. Pretty gross. They sell a pretty large portion of their food here live. I think just because it's easier to keep them that way and it shows that it's still "healthy" and edible.

And... I don't remember what else went on that day.

Friday 5/10:

Friday I went to class still half asleep and attempted to teach at the beginning of both of my classes but then gave in to their pleas of "fish movie!" I usually hang out in the supply room after I'm done with classes on Friday but I headed back to the dorms and made microwave cake instead. It was.. bleh. The pancake mix I bought tastes more like cake that this stuff did.

After lunch I showered and then took a nap which lasted through the 1pm dance rehearsal for a performance we're doing at the end of the month and the 2pm rehearsal on stage. Oops. Melanie ditched with me too and worked on her medical school application. When dance ended everyone came back to the dorms and Sam came in and tried to get me to go to the beach with them but I just rolled over and went back to sleep for another couple hours. It was so wonderfully quiet with everyone gone.

After dinner I read Eat, Pray, Love for a while and then ate some mashed potatoes that Melanie and Mikelle made. Sam was having a kinda rough day so I talked to him for a little bit and then read a little more before heading to bed.

Saturday 5/11:

Saturday morning I got up to ask Sam if he wanted to go check out a market that morning and as soon as I walked out the door ran into him and Kristen coming up the stairs. Super awkward. I read my book in the common room for a while before Luke came in to talk to me and we had a heart to heart. I really don't know what I did with the rest of the day. I spent about an hour catching up on emails. I had a random dance party with myself in my room to EFY songs. And..... that's about it? I wanted to go downtown that morning but Sam was with Kristen and Mikelle was on a home visit so I promised to wait for her to get back before we went and bought my wedding dress. Most people get back around 2pm from home visits and she said she'd try to get back early but at 5:30 we gave up on waiting and Melanie and I got on a bus headed downtown. We stopped at a random night market that we always pass and talk about stopping at but never do. It was okay but mostly just a bunch of little shops so the stuff there was more pricey than you can buy on the streets. We got back on the bus and went to our noodle shop and got dinner. The workers were all sitting outside and got up and went inside when they saw us coming down the street. I guess its not too hard to remember your American customers that come regularly almost every week. After noodles we headed to our regular night market and stopped at one of the first stands to look at a bin of 10 yuan Chinglish shirts. I felt my jacket move and discovered that someone had unzipped my jacket pocket and pulled my camera out. I turned around and the shop guy pointed down the street. HE SAW SOMEOME PICKPOCKET ME AND DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING! I ran after the sketchy looking guy that was walking way too fast through the crowd and kinda assaulted him, trying to pat him down to see if he had my camera and yelling "where's my camera" in his face. I couldn't find it and was worried that I had assaulted a random Chinese man. Josh appeared out of nowhere and I told him what happened and we ran after the guy again but I still didn't get it back. It was so frustrating because I betcha anything that he was the one who took my camera but I was incapable of telling the crowd of people around me that he had stolen my camera. SO frustrating. I even had $100 worth of Chinese money in my jean pockets that I wish he would have taken instead because I feel super awkward not having a camera now. I did upload my pictures fairly recently to my computer though so at least I have those but it's still frustrating knowing I just lost a brand new camera and 32GB card. I went back to the clothes stand and bought an awesome Chinglish shirt that says, "power girl dies! Never." Later I also picked up a couple more awesome Chinese hair ties and a green dress to wear on the beach. I don't know why but for some reason there were a bunch of people talking to us that night and one guy came up to us and asked if he could draw us. He did sketches of both Melanie and I for free. It was fun because we had a huge crowd of people (I counted 40 at one point) watching and comparing our faces with the drawings. The drawings are okay but heck they were free so it was a fun experience. Before we went home we stopped at a DVD shop and I bought 8 more DVDs. When we got back to the school a bunch of us watched Shanghai Noon that Mark had finally found on DVD and we've been wanting to watch it since we got here so it was a nice way to end off the night.

Sunday 5/12:

Sunday I woke up to knocking on my door.. then silence. Knocking.... silence. Knocking... silence. After the third episode of knocking I finally got up and discovered breakfast waiting for me. We drew names a few days ago for secret service and I got oatmeal and hot chocolate for mine. I don't actually remember ever eating oatmeal in my life because it grosses me out so much but hey.. when in China.. The part I ate with banana and brown sugar wasn't bad and the hot chocolate was delicious so it was nice to have breakfast for once. I missed hot water time for the morning (not that it's hot anyway but at least it gives me hope) and apparently missed water time altogether again. For some reason they've been shutting off the water in the building for hours at a time and some mornings its really frustrating to not be able to flush the toilet or wash your face, let alone shower. I got ready for church with dry shampoo and bottled water and headed down the hall to discover that the boys made us brunch for Mother's Day. I've never had someone make me breakfast here, let alone two. By the time I finished my french toast, eggs, and banana church had started and it was district conference. For some reason the sound quality was really bad and quiet so during the next 2 hours all I heard was some kids singing Mother's Day songs and a few phrases of, "show by the raise of your right hand" although I had no idea what we were sustaining. About half an hour in I walked out of church for the second time since I've been here and went in my room and watched a few conference talks instead.

After church got out I watched How I Met Your Mother (totes Sunday appropriate, right?) with a group for a couple episodes and then went back in my room. Later Sam came in and asked if I'd help him clean up the kitchen so we could make Mexican food. I ended up dicing up onions and garlic while he did dishes and boy did my hands smell lovely when I was done. We made refried beans and then mixed up dough for tortillas. By that point Melanie and Mikelle had joined us. Sam mixed stuff up for Spanish rice while the rest of us started flattening out the tortillas. Sam figured out how to cook the tortillas on the hot plate in a wok and I think they turned out pretty well considering. We were going to finish off cooking the ground beef we bought but discovered that after only 2 days it was bad so that idea got trashed. After a few hours of prep I got to eat tacos for dinner yesterday. Refried beans, Spanish rice, tortillas, salsa, and lettuce. All from scratch. All cooked on a hot plate in a wok in China. I call that success.

After dinner I moved to the common room to read Eat, Pray, Love some more and Sam joined me and tried to get me to try his lemon ginger tea he'd just made. Didn't happen. I read him some of the book but then we just talked until it got dark. At that point Jay decided she wanted to watch Iron Man 3 (heck yeah we already have it on DVD!). I watched the first bit but wasn't super interested and left to go shower and go to bed. I passed Geoff in the hall and he asked if we could talk so we went up on the roof and talked for a while. He has dental work he needs to get done but China's apparently too retarded to do it so he might have to go back to America. Flippin' ridiculous China. It is my constant prayer that I never have to see a doctor here because what I've witnessed from other people going to the hospital or clinic here scares the crap out of me. God bless America. And China.

Monday 5/13:

Monday morning I woke up early all on my own and got to shower and even put on makeup before Melanie got up for the day. I spent about an hour working on journaling and drinking hot chocolate and then got to talk to my mom on Skype for the first time since I got here. Right before I started the Skype call Luke came in the common room and told me that he had sent his 7 smartest kids with Bayli for class so I had to do the same. I told him that wasn't happening-- that the head teachers had told us to send the lower level learners and that's who I had already picked out. He responded saying that I had already agreed to send the higher students (which I didn't) and that even if I talked to the head teachers it wouldn't change anything. Therefore, my great morning went down the drain right before I went up on screen across the world. After the call ended I got to chat with Brianna and Matt for a little while while I ate microwave-made pancakes. No idea how I got so lucky as to have the internet working that well for two hours but it was nice to have a little miracle. Luke came back in later to see if I was still mad and we started arguing again until I walked out and went back in my room. Yay my first proper fight in China!

I worked on a Powerpoint for class until lunch (which was disgusting) and then went back after and barely finished it before class started. We talked about different ways to describe people which went over okay with the kids but by the time I got to 5^th grade I was feeling pretty sick and lightheaded. When class got out I decided my sickness was attributed to the fact that I only eat carbs and never drink water. Out of everything I brought to China I've discovered 2 of the most important items have been my vitamins and water bottle. I have, however, been neglecting them as of late. While I was in the printing room working on prepping for class the next day I chugged a few glasses of water and felt a little bit better by the time I had to go back to my last hour of teaching for the day. I had 5^th graders again for the last class and Melanie had the idea earlier that day of combining watching a movie with reading. I tested it out and it worked pretty well. I put in Finding Nemo again while I pulled aside students individually to work on reading with them. When they were done reading I gave them a sparkly smiley face sticker and they were totally into that reward system. I've tried so many bribes this semester-- candy, youku videos, games... but I had no idea that offering a sparkly sticker would get some of my smartest, I'm-too-cool-to-do-this-boys to participate. Win!

Dinner was good (potatoes and rice!) and afterward I went to the JiaJiaYue with Melanie and Mikelle where I picked up some fresh produce (which we rarely get here) and stocked up on my supply of the amazing chocolate carmel candies. When we got back Melanie and I watched the season finale of Once Upon a Time which was.. eh. After I heard music down the hall and went to investigate and discovered Sam doing ballet with Kristen and Bayli. I hung out with Geoff for a little bit while other people showered and then finished off the night with a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother before I bailed out to go to bed at 9:30.

Tuesday 5/14:

Tuesday I was up early again and showered and put on makeup (2 days in a row!!!) and worked on journaling some more. It's a constant battle I'm rarely winning here.. always a week or two behind. Melanie came in the common room and worked out to a program called Insanity. She asked if I wanted to join but with a name like that I declined and sat on the couch and ate cake and yogurt while I watched her sweat. I spent the rest of the morning reading Eat, Pray, Love which I've been reading for months now along with ~5 other books and decided it was finally time to get some of them finished.

Classes went really well. I have the routine of cementing in Monday's lesson on Tuesday so to continue with the describing people topic we played Guess Who using pictures off the Powerpoint and then eventually people in the room. When I went to teach my last class of the day the kids were all leaving the classroom so I followed them and watched 3-5^th grades have a tug-of-war competition. Typical of China.. no one tells you beforehand what's going on and suddenly you're in the middle of something completely unexpected. It was nice though because I didn't have to teach :) P.S.-- my kids won!

After dinner a bunch of people went downtown so I ended up playing Speed, Golf, and Go Fish with Geoff. I whooped him in Golf but lost by one pair in Go Fish. Once everyone got back the plan was to watch the movie Brothers Bloom. I made friends with Mark by giving him a Reese's that I still had stashed from Casey's visit almost 2 months ago and got a buddy to sit next to during the movie. I thought it was a pretty good movie and apparently have seen it before because I remembered a few of the scenes but I don't remember when or where I've watched it. The night finished off with Melanie and Mikelle finally finding the housing they want in Provo that I've been considering moving into with them. We'll see what happens.

Vacation 4/30-5/1

Tuesday 4/30:

There was a crazy thunder and lightning storm that woke me up in the middle of the night and was still pouring out rain pretty strong when we woke up the next morning. We were on the top floor next to an overhang so it was really loud and actually kinda scared me. I headed downstairs to discover that Melanie was sick. Cherish was still sick from the day before so we were 2/7 now. I checked my email to discover an email from Nate saying he knows someone who might be interested in renting the last room in my house which took a lot of stress away so hopefully that will work out.

We took taxis to Reed Flute Cave which took a lot longer than anticipated because the roads were flooded. We passed a tourist spot on the way that was under a good 8 inches or more of water. Our driver was super cool and stopped where we bought tickets and waited to drive us the rest of the way up the hill. We were supposed to meet the head teachers at 9:30 which ended up being exactly when we got there. We sat at the entrance and waited for half an hour for them while Melanie's body decided to start throwing up. Poor girl. We gave up at 10 and went in the cave. The cave was huge and really pretty with all the colored lights they have set up shining on the rocks. Sam was especially humored by the stalactite that looked like a giant peeing penis. No joke. When we finished with the cave we waited for the head teachers for at least another half hour and then started trying to figure out what to do since they hadn't showed up and we still had Cherish. I saw them walking by about 40 feet from us on another pathway that if I hadn't seen them, would have never led them to pass us. That's right.. my creeper skills come in use sometimes. Since the rain had been so bad and everything was flooded, there weren't going to be any cruises going down the Li River for the next couple days so we scrapped that idea and went on bamboo rafts on a lake by the cave. The Chinese guy on my boat was super fun and spoke English really well and was enjoyable to talk with. The rafts are just lengths of bamboo strapped together and then you sit on stools on the raft. Jay's a little bit bigger so instead of only sitting on one stool the guy made her double stool it. Funny moment that I got some good pictures of.

After our little party on the lake we caught the #3 bus back to town and met a group of Chinese people that used to live in Australia so they spoke amazing English and we had a nice little conversation. It was actually kind of awkward how we started talking. One of the ladies had a tourist book with lots of nice pictures of the area and I told her "we like your pictures," not expecting her to really say anything back since I don't speak Chinese and most Chinese don't think they are good enough at English to talk to you. When she responded in English and continued the conversation it really caught me off-guard. I'm so used to talking about Chinese people in front of them since they can't understand what I'm saying that it's going to be a problem back home. I wonder how many people I'll insult in the first week. We didn't know where to get off the bus so some random guy was helping us but told us to get off too soon so we walked around for a little while and passed a couple people getting their hair cut on the street. The sick/grumpy group got a taxi and went back to the hostel and Mikelle, Sam, and I found another bus and walked the rest of the way back. When we met up the other 3 didn't want to go get lunch so we left again and wandered the streets for somewhere good but failed to find anything the least bit desirable. UNTIL.... we found a smoothie shop. After Bahama Bucks its the next best smoothies I've ever had and they tasted a million times better because we were in China. And for only 8 yuan, baby. We also found these mentos (rolls) with black stuff in them that were pretty good. I don't think we ever figured out what it was but that's part of the magic of street food in China I guess? We also found a little music shop that Sam was fascinated over the guitars in and was lost in his own world for a while. When we got back we took taxis to the train/bus station and this, my dear friends, is why I have delayed writing about this day in my life. Ok-- here's what happened. Melanie, Sam, and I got in one taxi and Geoff, Jay, and Mikelle got in another. When the taxi dropped us off we were at a bus station but definitely not the one we wanted. It was.. more than a little frustrating. Melanie was still super sick and Sam and I had no idea what to do. Should we wait to see if the other three showed up where we were at? Should we try to meet them back at the hostel? Should we try to find the other bus station? Should we just get on a van to Yangshuo and hope they do the same? No idea. We ran into a few other ILP people there that had also gotten separated from their group and said a quick hi but then they disappeared. We found a couple of British guys and I talked to one named Andy and he told us that everything was crazy because of the rain. Apparently most of Guilin was flooded and buses between Guilin and Yangshuo were super backed up. He gave us the name for the other station in Chinese and we tried to get a taxi to take us there. Traffic was basically at a complete standstill and when we managed to find open taxis they wouldn't take us to the station because I guess it required them to get in the worst of traffic. Through all of this we were surrounded by a bunch of Chinese people waiting for buses and a crazy man in a camouflaged get-up and Chinese women trying to get us to buy different tours. Finally a guy our age approached us and asked in perfect English what he could do to help us. His English name was Francisco (so English, right?) and after we explained our situation he offered to drive us to the other station. There were 2 other guys his age in the car and an older man so we were pretty skeptical about getting in a random expensive car in the middle of China but we did it. They ended up being really awesome and while we were sitting in traffic they talked about how they came to pick up tickets for a trip the next day and how the guy driving was Francisco's uncle and he was an optometrist.. We went over this big bridge and while we were sitting there I looked out the window and discovered Geoff, Jay, and Mikelle standing in front of the other bus station. We told our Chinese friends but it was illegal to get out of the car on the bridge so we had to wait until the other side. Sam ran ahead while I walked with Melanie. The road we were walking on had water gushing out of the man holes and flowing down into a completely flooded underpass. I couldn't believe how much water there was. It took maybe 5 minutes to get off the bridge and run to the station and by that time the other 3 were gone. Sam and I decided to just get on a bus and go to Yangshuo and hope they did the same. We loaded super sick Melanie on a bus and took off on our 1.5 hour journey through the most flooded streets I've ever seen in person. Melanie slept almost the entire way and Sam and I explored the different settings on our cameras interrupted by pictures of motorcycles riding through a foot of rain and Sam's different theories about how the hills around us formed. "Them mountains over there" (as Jay just said) are gorgeous. They're nicknamed the Dr. Seuss mountains and are really random and super steep. I'll list the theories at the end of this post.

By the time we got to Yangshuo I was about to pee my pants and haven't sprinted to an available pee location that fast in a very long time. We had no idea how to get to our hostel and ended up having to pay 30 yuan for a taxi because it was the night before May 1 which is Labor Day in China so all the taxis were charging the same flat rate. It ended up being right down the street. When we walked in we found the other 3 members of our group and discovered that they had only arrived 15 minutes before us. SO glad it worked out in the end. 5 of us were in one room with a Chinese man and after playing rock paper scissors Geoff ended up in a room with 5 Chinese people. They were super nice and we all met them before we discovered the Chinese man in our room wanted to switch so in the end the 6 of us had a room all to ourselves which was really really nice. The hostel was small but I liked it especially because of Pizza. Pizza was our pet kitten for a couple days who got spoiled rotten by us as often as possible. That night we walked to one of the main streets and wandered around forever looking for something decent to eat and finally sufficed with what I called the McDonalds of China AKA super cheap disgusting food. I got noodles that apparently came with fried grease in it. Ewwwww. We discussed what we wanted to do in Yangshuo and then stopped at a travel place that booked our plans for the next 2 days for only 300 yuan a person. It was cheap and super nice to have it planned out for us. Walking back to the hostel we looked at a bunch of street vendors and found a woman who makes these woven trinkets for super cheap so I bought a couple of those along with a couple other things at other stands.

Back at the hostel I took what we call a waterfall shower. It's the mister setting on the shower head with ice cold water and in order to make it more bearable you simply pretend you're bathing in a nice cool waterfall. Totally works. I spent the rest of the evening catching up on emailing and playing with Pizza. Oh. Also.. at some point in the evening.. right before dinner I believe.. I bent over to pick up Pizza and ripped my pants. By the time we got home I had two giant rips across the back of my pants (one on each leg) that have now been turned into booty shorts I wear at the beach.

Here are Sam's theories:

1) Fissures.

2) Really jagged glaciers.

3) Asteroid shrapnel.

4) An asteroid hit the earth creating a crater that was filled by water and created the ocean. The asteroid blew debris all over the earth which is the mountains are made of and you don't see it up north because it's covered in snow.

5) Giant earthworm teeth.

What really happened is that the entire area is a karst environment. Aka.. limestone that eroded. After researching online I believe that the correct term for the mountains is mogote.

But to be completely honest, those theories were one of the many factors that made this one of the best weeks of my life.

Wednesday 5/1:

Wednesday morning I woke up to Sam playing with my hair. We were both on top bunks in an L-shape with our heads facing each other so Sam's face is what I fell asleep and woke up to. It was one of those moments that could have been super awkward but ended up being really nice. We didn't talk so I had an hour of wonderful silence before Jay woke up. She was in the bunk under me and could tell I was awake and asked if I could help her. It turned out that she was super sick and was shaking and had a bad fever. I had felt the bed shaking in the middle of the night but figured she was just having a bad dream. I got her some pills to try and help bring down the pain and fever and then got a t-shirt wet and put it on her forehead and then spent the rest of my morning sitting there holding her hand. I had the prompting multiple times that we should say a prayer together but didn't and really wished afterwards that I had listened.

We left Jay in bed for the day and the 5 of us picked up bikes at the travel center and rode to an Ancient Totem Village. It was one of the places Jay wanted to go to that I was a little skeptical of but it ended up being pretty cool. The beginning of it was a museum telling about the history with some artifacts that dated back 12,000 year ago. The people there were all brown which was really really weird to see in China. I don't know if they were actual descendents or just from another country or what. They were all dressed in animal print clothing and even had their kids there sleeping on beds. At the beginning we all grabbed hands and danced around. One of the native guys who was super short kept jumping up and hip bumping me and later picked me as his favorite and dragged me over to the side to give me a fern head wreath. Walking to the next section another one of the natives asked if Sam and I were married. There was a part that they gave us these small cattle skull necklaces and we all prayed to the skull god.

At the end there was a show you could watch which we got front row seats for. While we were waiting for it to start one of the guys acted out that Mikelle had a big butt and then proceeded to display eating her and crapping her out. SUPER weird people there. I compared it to an insane asylum. The show started and I ended up getting pulled up on stage and having to dance with a grass skirt and then winning the competition and got to wear a coconut bra that they gave to me and zips up into a purse. On the way out they had a bear and a llama that you could pay to take pictures with. This happens a lot in China but I guess if people will pay money to take pictures with random animals and you have no animal rights laws, why not?

For lunch we stopped at a random place we rode past and ate expensive soup (that was mostly water) and fried rice. We asked for spoons for the soup and discovered when we got the bill that they had charged us for them. Oh China.. you're so upsetting sometimes.

After lunch we rode to the mud caves and I got my first experience with peeing in a trough. Basically just a trench in the floor with a couple short walls for you to stand behind. I kinda liked it. We stripped down and locked our stuff up and then waited to go in. We were getting pretty worried because everyone else was wearing normal clothing but then a few Chinese guys our age came out in swim suits so we felt a little better. It turned out there was a full cave tour before you got to the mud part. Oops, wish we would have known that and had brought our cameras. The mud part ended up being just a pool next to a cleaner walkway so we could have brought more stuff with us but it ended up working out. The mud pool was a blast. I was the first one to jump in and got covered instantly by Sam tackling me. They had a small slide you could go down but the best part was just floating in mud. Who knew you would be super buoyant in mud? They had a guy working there taking pictures that got a bunch of us so we bought some from him. One of them has Mikelle and I with a Chinese guy and then Geoff and Melanie are randomly in the back looking like they got caught doing something they weren't supposed to. I love it and it's up on my wall now. I ended up taking it to class to show my kids and they fought over it and wrinkled it (the little twits) but it still looks pretty good. The mud stretched out our clothes tons so even though I was down to my underwear I figured out why some people just swim naked. They make you shower off when you get out and someone inspects your cleanliness before you can go on to the hot springs. The hot springs were just a couple shallow pools with hot water flowing into them that felt amazing. I could have stayed in there for at least an hour.

After the mud caves we rode our bikes over to Moon Hill and Sam, Mikelle, and I hiked up to the top under the big arch. My clothes were still wet so I hadn't put my shorts back on and was riding around and hiking in underwear and a tank top. On the way up we met a guy from Britain named Lee who was an architect in Shanghai I believe. He was really cool and we ended up hanging out with him the entire time there and then riding back into town with him. At the top there were a bunch of people rock climbing and one guy had super long dreadlocks that took us a few minutes to figure out what they were.

It took less time than we thought to ride back to town but it was really nice being on a bike passing all the other people there on vacation (Yangshuo is one of the tourist capitals of China) and the street vendors and other hubbub going on. We dropped the bikes off and then took turns showering at the hostel while we caught up with Jay and cuddled/played with Pizza. Jay was feeling a little bit better so the 4 girls took a rickshaw to West Street which we discovered sounds like a Chinese street name so had to stop our driver and redirect him back downtown. While we were out on the edge of town I hit on a guy riding a motorcycle and he followed us around for a while. Once we reached the actual West Street we were supposed to meet up with Sam and Geoff but there must have been a couple thousand people packed on the street that night. We ran into another ILP group from another city. Jenny and her husband were in the group and I'd met them at training. She had worked for ILP in Weihai before and had given me a lot of info about what it was like here so it was kinda cool to run into her on the other side of the world. Another girl, Kayla, had been in Weihai too and we chatted about our kids and it turned out that she taught the kids I have now. Small world, right?

We bought dinner at a nice American restaurant and I got a chicken burger for 42 yuan that was pretty good. Melanie only ate half her burger and said I could have the rest but after one bite I discovered it wasn't actually cooked all the way which caused a big scene by Melanie. We spent the rest of the evening shopping and Mikelle and I bought dresses (they have modest clothes here!!!) and I also picked up a pair of earrings and we all got matching communist hats. We took another rickshaw back to the hostel and hung out downstairs with Pizza for a while before we took the party to our room and finally went to bed after midnight. It was so nice to stay up late-- sometimes I miss the days I could make it past 10:30. Even though it was late I still couldn't sleep so Sam let me read scriptures on his phone for a while which worked pretty well on helping me eventually pass out.

Gudong Waterfall

Mikelle, me, and Sam at the top of a multi-tiered waterfall in Gudong

4/29

Monday 4/29:

Monday Mikelle got up a little early to check and see if there were any tours available for the day going to the rice terraces and we discovered there were no english or chinese tours available. It was pouring rain outside so we spent a while at the hostel eating breakfast and trying to figure out what to do.

We ended up taking a taxi to the bus station where we paid for a bus to Longsheng and then got on another bus heading up to the actual terraces. Overall transportation and the fee for the terraces ended up costing less than 100 yuan as compared to the 300 for an english tour and 180 for a Chinese tour. Booyah!! If you can figure out how to do it on your own it is SO much better.

When we arrived at the terraces I had to pee something fierce and it didn't help that it was raining so I was constantly hearing the sound of rushing water. I know a grand total of about 5 words in Chinese other than numbers and have horrible trouble saying them so asking for a bathroom got me a lot of laughs and we finally decided there just wasn't anywhere there for us to go. So what did we do? We walked a little ways out and peed on a rice terrace. Can't wait to tell that story to my grandchildren.

It was seriously one of the best days of my life. There was a group of about 5 Asian guys our age that were there but other than that it was just us. It rained for the first half we were there which made everything beautiful and misty. There's a path through the terraces that you can hike on so we spent a couple hours hiking from one small village to another. Right before we got to the second village there were a couple side paths you could take for scenic views so Sam and I hiked up to those and then met the rest of the group at the bottom. There were a few vendors there and I bought a purse I'm in love with for 25 yuan before we all got in a van and rode back to Guilin.

Back at the hostel we were all starving since none of us had eaten all day and had been hiking so we ordered dinner there. A bunch of people got fried rice and I tried Sam's and it was super delicious. I ordered orange duck which took longer to prepare and it was pretty good. I made the mistake of not paying much attention to what I was eating and put a piece of orange in my mouth, thinking it was a potato. That's wasn't the most pleasant of surprises.

Cherish was sick and Jamie needed space so the other 5 of us tried to make plans for the next day. We wanted to go to the Reed Flute Cave in the morning where Cherish would switch groups and go with the head teachers and then we'd take a cruise down the Li River to get to Yangshuo. The problem was that all the cruises left early but we couldn't leave any earlier because we had to drop off Cherish. It turned into somewhat of a dead-end argument and I left to go shower. When I got back nothing had still been accomplished so we decided to walk around in the town for a little bit. Mikelle was upset over planning so she stayed at the hostel while Melanie, Geoff, Sam, and I walked down to the bank and then checked out what turned out to be an arcade called Mario World Game and then stopped at a bakery on the way back.

Back at the hostel Melanie went to bed and I talked to Geoff for a while while Sam played guitar. Eventually Geoff went to bed and I spent the rest of the night talking to Sam. Here's what Sam was so kind to write in this document about that night:

"He [Sam] looked super sexy with his blond hair and dashing good looks. He doesn't actually play the guitar or sing very well, but that's what makes it so entertaining. We stayed up in the lobby until late listening to the same American music that just seems to run on a loop here. Sam made one of the songs better than ever by changing the lyrics. Why do birds suddenly appear every time geoff is near? Just like me, they long to be, close to Geoff. Why do stars fall down from the sky every time Geoff walks by? You get the picture."

It was a really enjoyable way to end the night. We looked at pictures from the day on Sam's camera and then he told me about different types of return missionaries (A, B, BB, PF, F) which I'll explain to you some day if you'd like and then did some kind of personality test on me by having me create a story step by step about a warehouse. Super nice and how I'd like to spend more evenings of my life.

4/25-4/28 Vacation!

Thursday 4/25:

Thursday morning I woke up to singing in the hall which confused me because it didn't make sense with my dream so it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out where it was coming from. I first confirmed that it was not in Chinese, then decided it wasn't a recording, then finally settled on the idea that it was Sam. He's super ridiculously good at singing. At least that's what I thought when I woke up to a hallway of sound in China.

I got out of bed to freshen up since I'd been wearing my retainer all night (yay for peer pressure from roommates!) and ended up being in the bathroom again when Sam came to wake me up. I went into his room after and was immediately assaulted by Luke being mad about something so I left and went in the common room where he followed me and kept talking so I went back in my room where Melanie was mad because all of the water was off again so I went back in Luke's room where he hit on me so I went back in my room where Melanie was still mad so I finished my long trek with hiding in the common room again and got a couple hours of silence thank goodness. I spent all morning working on catching up on my journal and messaging Matt on Skype.

I walked down to lunch with Melanie and Luke and they started fighting again even after I changed the subject. When I got back I ran into Mark walking out of his room with a big grin on his face and watching him shove a pad and tampon under Kristen and Andrea's door as he said, "I don't want to talk about it." He and Geoff came running in our room later accusing us of decking their room out with pads and tampons but I had no idea who did it. Turns out Sam and Dellany had done it using extras that were in the kitchen left over from old groups. Mark had put some under the other girls' door because he had first assumed they were the culprits. Always fun and games in China.

Sam came in to talk before classes while Melanie and I were finishing last minute lesson plans. AKA I was starting to write mine for the day. I decided to try out Jeopardy that Sam and Melanie had already used in their classes and had success with so I was working on coming up with questions for that. On Thursdays I only teach 3 classes instead of 4 which is nice but the first 4^th grade class was crazy. The Chinese teachers often seat the kids in the class according to intelligence and I made the mistake of having the smart side compete against the stupid side for the first period. It wasn't intentional but that's how it ended up playing out. Therefore, the smart kids wasted the other half because the dumb kids didn't even play because they knew they had no chance. It got so bad that I simply set my book down and walked out of the class, slamming the door. I've used this before in 5^th grade to show them how very serious I am about them behaving well enough for me to teach but hadn't tried it out in 4^th grade yet. Once I was in the hall I realized I really was stressed out over it and took a minute to cool down before I walked back into what was now a perfectly silent classroom.

As soon as that class ended I had a break so I booked it back up to the dorms and changed into a tank top and shorts and headed up to the roof to tan. There are areas with black roofing that provide a little more warmth but after trying that I couldn't handle the intense cold wind so I moved away from the edge to the cement which cut down on wind but still wasn't comfortable. I lasted about 20 minutes and then headed back downstairs where I sat on my bed for 10 minutes and ate Mike and Ikes that I still have stashed away for emergencies.

Back at the school Luke was freaking out because he discovered that some of the classes the head teachers had cut from his schedule they hadn't told the school they cut so he had classes sitting without a teacher all morning so I gave him a big hug which started a whole new wave of questions from students asking if we liked each other. One of my 4^th grade boys (I think Bruce?) came up to me and told me, "Your boyfriend is Superman!!" which I started laughing at because I had showed them a picture of me from Halloween this past year with Stephannie and Jason with Jason in a Superman costume. I tried to explain that Superman had a new girlfriend but he was very persistent with informing me that Superman is my boyfriend so I've decided to just appreciate that I have a superhero boyfriend.

I was a lot smarter for the 2^nd hour of 4^th grade and split the class up differently so they were actually competitive and it went really well. 5^th grade enjoyed it a lot too so hopefully it's something I can incorporate weekly since it's fun but still educational.

When classes got out I discovered Cherish had arrived and could see her blonde hair all the way across campus. Most of the group went downtown to the noodle shop and night market to show her around but Melanie and Mikelle and I had already made other plans. The high school kids wanted to meet us and hang out for a while so I cleaned up my room at the dorms while everyone else did that :) Since Luke and Sam were both having an off day I stopped by and left them each a Reese's candy that I still had stashed away from Casey's visit. Those things are gold here. Afterwards the three of us (Melanie, Mikelle, and I) ended up taking a bongbongshua (rabbit car with 3 wheels) down to the JiaJiaYue where we caught the 30 bus and then got help from a random woman who told us when to get off to transfer to the 12. She didn't speak a word of English but when I said the bus stop out loud she tapped me on the shoulder and tapped her nose to indicate she was also getting off on that stop. When the time came she gave me a good pat on the shoulder and we got off and lucked out picking up the 12 less than a minute later. Where were we going? Back to the steak restaurant of course! This time I ordered a plate with both steak and chicken and it was to die for amazing. We decided we needed to cut back though because even once a week a $6-$10 meal gets expensive, especially in China. Afterwards we stopped at a grocery store there and picked up some food for the trip and then headed home.

I spent the rest of the night talking to Matt on Skype which was really nice but eventually had to say goodbye because Melanie was trying to sleep and I afterwards discovered everyone else was asleep too. Staying up late in China just doesn't really happen because we all know how horrible it is teaching the next day sleep deprived.

Friday 4/26:

Friday morning Melanie and I woke up to other ILP teachers being ridiculously loud in the hallway. She doesn't teach until later but I had to be at school by 8. I ended up just having them take a spelling test and then play the games for the rest of class. Super easy and necessary for crazy Fridays.

After class I graded tests in the supply room again and hung out with Sam and then went down to the printing room and printed off stuff for the trip until they kicked me out for lunch time.

We ate a quick lunch and then started packing for our big 9-day trip we were leaving on in 3 hours. I've been missing wearing sandals super fierce but didn't bring any with me to China because it's rude to wear them here but I found a pair in the pile in the kitchen and packed them. Originally we packed our things in a carry-on suitcase but then downsized to a backpack. I can't believe that I fit 9 days worth of clothes, food, toiletries, shoes, and souvenirs in a single backpack. While I was packing I decided to finally wash my sheets for the first time since I got to China so I have clean sheets to look forward to when I get back. Melanie, Mikelle and I made an entire loaf of pb&j sandwiches to throw in our bags to help cut down on hunger for part of the trip.

A bunch of us took 3 vans to the airport in Yantai and our van driver caught on that we were watching to see who was in the lead so the drive turned into a race and we won! The airport has such low security which is actually kinda nice that we only have to deal with pretend security here. The do have an obsession with tickets though.. For example, we had to get off the plane in Jinan before we got back on to go to Xi'an and in that exchange they ripped 4 tickets for me. They'll tear off one part at the beginning of the walkway and another at the end as if somehow in the 30 feet you walked in a closed off ramp to a plane you somehow managed to add another person. Once we got to Xi'an it was already about 9pm so the 4 of us I had booked hostel rooms for (Melanie, Mikelle, Jay, and I) wanted to go straight to the hostel but the rest of the group wanted to go to the Muslim quarter. We ended up getting a big bus for all of us (15?) that was going to stop at the hostel and then the Muslim quarter. We got to the hostel around 10:30 and everyone got off there :) Guess who knew that it would be too late to travel that night before we got downtown? Gloat gloat gloat....

The hostel was huge. It had 3 buildings with 3 stories each and tons of plants everywhere. It was a crazy party place though and had people partying it up with karaoke at least until 12 which is when I finally got to crash. The 4 of us made plans to skip the expensive tour and visit the Terracotta Warriors on our own the next day by public bus. Afterwards I took the coldest shower of my entire life and then crashed into bed.

Saturday 4/27:

Saturday morning I woke up to Rochelle getting up at 6:40 to head out with another group. I had set my alarm for 7:20 but since when do I ever get to sleep in as late as I want when I'm rooming with a group? Geoff had planned to go with our group but decided to switch to the other one for the day and decided he needed to tell me this as I was peeing in a squatter. My response was something like, "Really Geoff? Do you really need to talk to me at this precise moment?" I got all packed up and went downstairs with Jay where we met Melanie and Mikelle eating breakfast and I ate Mikelle's egg. Oh noes!!!! BIRD FLU!!! Remember that one time the bird flu broke out across China and people died? Oh right.. that's now and I'm in the middle of it. We've been advised by the embassy to not eat chicken, eggs, or street food. Unfortunately those are 3 of my favorite things to eat here so I've just decided I'm not going to get bird flu and I eat whatever I want.

We locked our luggage up at the hostel and caught the 603 bus to the bus station. It was a double decker and reminded me of a bus I rode in Ireland in the front of a DD with another crazy driver. At the station we ran into the other group that still hadn't left and was bartering with a driver to get to the Terracotta Warriors. We just got in line for bus 306 which gets you there for $2 and while in line I had the discovery that red pandas are sometimes called fire foxes and that's the emblem for Firefox. Aha moment! I also discovered that I've finally gotten Asian goggles and started taking creeper pictures of cute Asian guys so that when I get back home I'll be able to remember what I thought was super attractive after being away from white people for over 2 months.

On the bus we sat by 2 awesome Chinese college guys that we talked to. We never asked their names but we've since named them Talkative and Gorgeous. They spoke English really well and we had a good time talking about a bunch of things including marrying to get a green card. I would have married one of them so they could come back to America with me. They got off at some hot springs which we considered stopping at with them but decided to just go straight to the Terracotta Warriors.

At the Terracotta Warriors we hired a tour guide for 2 hours for 40 yuan a person ($6.50) named Jenny and had a good time with her showing us around and telling about the history. The Terracotta Warriors are a bunch of clay (terracotta) statues of soldiers and horses that were placed in front of the first emperor's tomb to protect him in the afterlife. They stand between his tomb and enemy territory. They were buried in trenches/pits that then had roofs built over them. There are 3 pits you can visit with different warriors. The main pit is the biggest with soldiers and horses which is what you usually see in pictures. The other two pits are slightly smaller. The second pit had archers and a calvary which made up the higher ranking military warriors. The third pit had a meeting room with the top-ranking officers. I kept thinking about Mulan while I was walking around. I was a much more impressed with the exhibit than I thought I'd be. The statues are all unique and made to represent the emperor's actual army so Chinese people will try to find a statue that looks the most like them. They're also painted but the paint disappears after a couple hours of being uncovered. I'm mind blown that over 2000 years later so many of these statues are still intact after being under the ground for so long. They were discovered by a farmer digging a well. He was at the exhibit signing souvenir books when we there.

Jenny dropped us off at a noodle shop for lunch and then we caught a random bus back to Xi'an. It wasn't as nice as the first one and it cost 1 yuan (oh no, 16 cents!!) more than the first one but we were tired and it got us where we needed to be.

Back in Xi'an we went to the Muslim quarter which is a big shopping district with a mausoleum in the middle. Melanie stopped at Haggen Daas and bought their 2^nd cheapest ice cream ($10) while Mikelle and Jay got stuff at Starbucks. I was too rebellious and cheap to eat American food so I just waited. We did some shopping and then got on a rickshaw that took us to the mausoleum (which ended up costing money to see so we didn't) and then took it back to the hostel. There aren't any rickshaws in Weihai but they're all over the tourist areas. Basically like those benches you can ride to sports games downtown from your parking garage but they have covers on them. Our driver took us down tiny little alleyways and in main-stream traffic so it was quite the adventure. We didn't haggle a price beforehand and I went with girls that won't argue for a price so we ended up getting ripped off on how much it cost but it was still really fun. We passed a night bus on the way back with beds in it and I finally put two and two together and realized that the Knight bus on Harry Potter is a night bus. Another blonde aha moment for the day.

We had a little bit of time before we had to be at the train station to leave so I showered at the hostel since we were about to get on a train for 2.5 days without any resemblance of hygiene. Once on the train I was really glad I did because everyone else was still all sweaty and gross from the day and then had no way to clean up. We jumped back on the 603 to the train station and started one of the longest journeys of my life. We got on the train around 6:30 that night and didn't get off until about midnight 30 hours later. I usually really like the trains but none of us had bottom bunks so there was nowhere for us to hang out and the upper bunks aren't tall enough to sit up on so I basically spent 30 hours in bed with the exception of getting up to pee and make food every once in a while. I was tired and needed quiet time so as soon as we got on the train I put in my headphones and tuned people out until lights out. I read a book for a while and wrote in my journal for a while but stayed very anti-social. It didn't help that Kristen was in the same compartment with me so I got to awkwardly be there for her and Sam talking/flirting on the ride. Sam was in the next compartment over but our beds were attached together with the wall in between so once the lights were out we talked for a while. I had so much on my mind from reading a relationship book and kept trying to figure out my own abandonment issues and what I was going to do with my life when I get back from China. Sam fell asleep but I couldn't sleep for a long time and then kept waking up all night when the train switched tracks or used its emergency brakes or when one of the conductors kept coming by with a flashlight because Chinese people by us kept talking. After all that I still woke up at (as the book I'm now reading would say) "the ungodly hour" of 5:30am.

Sunday 4/28:

Sunday I half slept in until 7 but then laid in bed all morning. I smashed myself into Mikelle's bunk with her for a while and had a little cuddle session but then got up and ate a delicious (for China) orange roll I had brought and ended up talking to Sam for a while. Cindy was really sick so he got called away to give her a blessing with Mark. They hung a blanket off the bunk above hers and all huddled under it to give the blessing. Sam said he'd come back to finish our conversation but he never did so I eventually gave up on waiting and went back to my bed where I found him talking to Kristen. Yay.... That sent me back to my headphones and journal and I spent the next few hours on my computer reading random old files. Later I laid on Sam's bed with him while he read me entries from his journal that he had written when we first got to China. After that I was frustrated with life again and talked to Geoff about Spam theory and how I need to learn from my past relationships and stop being interested in dating guys that don't really want to date me. The woman in the bed next to us started throwing up so I left and made an attempt at making the package of Stouffer's stuffing I had brought with me. I failed but ate it anyway. Even the American food I brought here often tastes like China because I can't prepare it properly. I went back to reading more random files and journaling until it was time for lights out again. It was really annoying because they turned the lights out but then came by and switched cards with us so we could get off the train. Then they turned the lights back on. Then they turned them back off. Finally it was time to get off and I was so ready to get away from being miserable.

This is when the huge group of people split up. There were 6 people in my group: me, Mikelle, Melanie, Jay, Geoff, and Sam. We also had Cherish for a couple days because the head teachers had her moving around with groups for the vacation. The 7 of us got in a taxi van and headed to the hostel. No one there spoke English and they couldn't find our reservation even though we had called earlier that day to confirm it. It was 12:30 in the middle of the night before we got beds but we did finally get beds. I ended up getting a full-size bed that had a box spring. That just doesn't happen every day here. We were in a weird storage room on the top floor but at that point I didn't care. I took a freezing cold shower and got into bed sticky hot because we were super far south in China. Somehow by the middle of the night I woke up freezing but everyone else sweat all night. Yay China.