Performances, Dino Park, and Doctor Visits

These past two week have been busy and they are just going to get busier and busier as time goes by! As of today we only have 9 more days left in China, wow the time has flown. Before I started feeling ready but now I think that I really am ready. I love my kids and enjoy this country but I miss my home and my family. We have already had to say goodbye to some people from the Branch and ya know, saying goodbye is hard! I'm not looking forward to that part of the end. But enough of that talk, time for some fun updates!

Alyssa and I chose for our end-of-the-year-party performance to be the 10 little monkeys. When we ordered the costumes for it we expected some kind of monkey tail or big ear but no, as usual, China went all out! Our kiddos got full body costumes of 10 monkeys, 3 doctors, and one momma.

Alina, Sam, and Steven posing as the doctors. And you can probably tell from the picture, but yes, Alina has quite the crush on Sam ;D

Here is Alina, Jack, Michael, and Peter just being themselves in the darling monkey costumes. 

After the performance all the parents wanted pictures so here is one of all the morning ILP teachers and out 42 awesome students.

This is just random but I for sure wanted to get a picture of the mini bus taxi. We have ridden in these kinds of cars so often! The drivers will stand on the street and say "Taxi, taxi" over and over again especially because we travel in big groups so when we finally agree, the driver always walks us down dark alleys or behind sketch buildings to these vans. So sketchy! But this is how we roll ;D

I have no explanation for this because I don't think there is one. We just found these.... statue/mannequins in the middle of this massive underground mall dressed in these uniforms with crazy hair. They were roped off but Alyssa insisted that I go stand in the middle of them. She kept pressuring me and saying she wouldn't take the picture unless I hopped the rope but just as I was about to Amber (another teacher in our group) spotted a nearby guard and quick and stopped me, thank goodness!

Saturday morning we headed out bright and early to the Dinosaur Amusement Park in Changzhou, I had been back and forth on whether I should have gone or not but I finally decided last minute that it would be worth it to just play with the girls in my group since we have become so close. While we were waiting in the train station this guy just kept staring at us, which is totally normal, but then he pulled out his camera and tried pretty hard to be sneaky. I just laughed and pulled out my camera and blatantly took a picture of him. When he noticed he laughed so hard, he thought that was pretty funny. The expats that have lived in China for a long time now say that they go through phases of not loving then not minding then hating the paparazzi but ya know, I don't know if I would every get tired of it. It think it's quite the self-esteem booster that everyone wants a picture of me and I'm really going to miss that in America.

We made it to the Dinosaur Park! It ended up being a lot more expensive than we expected, a ridiculously hot day, and the longest line waits, but all in all it was a pretty fun day. On the way there in the train I thought of all the reasons that I shouldn't have gone including that my Relief Society lesson for the next day wasn't planned yet but after it all I'm glad I went. The scenery of the park and the architect was incredible, it really was like nothing you have ever seen. Holy cow they spent a ton of time and money making that place look just like a legit land of dinosaurs.

This is the biggest and by far coolest roller coaster that was at the park. Surprisingly, though, when we went to get in line it said that it didn't open until 2 pm. At 2:15 we went to get on and they said that the line wait would be approximately 2 hours and the park closes at 5 so it would probably be our last ride of the day. Bummer! So instead of riding it I just took a picture so you see how could it would have been ;D The rides we did go on, though, were still really fun! There was one inside that shot you into a dark room where the walls were covered with light dots to look like stars, that was really neat. There was one that spun you around like the Samurai at Lagoon which was SUPER fun. Unfortunately we had gotten slurpies right before to cool us down, but after downing the slurpie and riding the ride for the 3rd time I was pretty motion sick and had to sit out the next couple of rides. Dang it! At the end of the day all of us were feeling a bit queasy from the rides, lack of good food, and lack of water on a humid and scorching day. We had woken up at 5:30 to get there on time so we were all pretty tired when we got on the train home. We weren't done bonding yet, though, so we played a game like charades the whole 1 1/2 til home. Then on the Subway I literally zonked out. Walking back to the dorms I was basically a zombie. Alyssa and I took our showers then I was up for another 1 1/2 planning my Relief Society lesson. That will teach me a thing or two about procrastination!

Oh China. So many men do this to "cool off". I just shake my head (and take pictures of course!)

Right before we left the park I spotted this group of guys and thought it would be ironic for the American girl to ask the Chinese boys for a picture, so here ya go! They laughed but they were really good about it.

Oh, this is a good one. Ok story time: Once upon a time an American girl got sick. I got a head cold about a month ago and the symptoms of it still haven't gone away. My sinuses feel like they are constantly going to explode. I looked up my other smaller symptoms and come to find out my cold turned into a sinus infection. (Side note right here: my mother has always warned me of sinus infections because I would never blow my nose when I was sick. To this day I literally don't know how to blow my nose because it is psychologically soooo hard for me to do it. After getting the infection I had had enough and now I can officially say that I can blow my nose. Embarrassing but true.) Well I went to the doctor (they actually had me go to the emergency room in the hospital....  the Chinese treat every little wound or medical problem as an emergency) and he sat me down and my chinese speaking Head Teacher and went over all of the symptoms. Without checking me out at all he send me to get a blood test. I went to a nurse and she drew my blood then 15 minutes later gave me the diagnoses. The dr. said it looked like it was just a regualar cold and not to worrry about it too much so he just gave me some basic meds: this box of angry/happy pills and this bottle of black liquid to drink 3xs a day. I took the meds every day on schedule just like a good little patient should but instead of leaving my cold actually got worse because then on top of the pained sinus, stuffed nose, headaches, and coughing now I have lost hearing in my left ear and whenever I talk, breathe,  or eat the sound is amplified like when you plug your ears with your fingers. After 3 days of that I went back to the doctor.

Doctor visit part II: I went back and this time they sent me to an actual examination room. The lady doctor first listened to my head teacher tell her all about my symptoms. Then she got her little camera on the end of the long metal want and checked out my ears. Yay! A real checkup! Then she got another wand and put it up my nose. I assumed it was a camera as well. Surprise! No, she squirted some kind of liquid all up in my nose. Wow, didn't know that was coming! I don't mean to be gross but then it quickly dripped back out of my nose and onto my lips. My instant reaction was one I regretted; I licked my lips. It wasn't that big of a deal besides it being gross but then my lips and my tongue went numb. Oh great. But wait, it gets better: So then she takes a longer metal wand and puts it in my nose again. This time I thought she was just checking it out with the camera but she shoves that thing all the way down the back of my throat! I have experiences few things that are that painful. She pulled it back out and explained that she couldn't do anything about my hearing at that hospital besides getting a cat scan but she could take care of the sinuses. Yay! Then she came at me with the wand again and I just laughed and shook my head. There is no way I would let that thing enter my body again! She said, "No, it's ok (in broken English) so I made the wrong choice of assuming she would just stick it in part way. All the way back down it went. When I swallowed I could feel the end of the camera touching the back of my throat. Let me tell you right now that I straight metal object should NOT but pushed through a sensitive curved path. Oh China, oh China. My poor head teacher said he was going to have nightmares, haha poor guy. Luckily we did manage to say that we just needed some antibiotics to take care of the problem so we got loaded with meds again that I will have to take basically constantly. Let's cross our fingers these work! Oh China :D

Suzhou: the Venice of China

We left early Sunday morning to catch the train the Suzhou, the Venice of China. We all checked into our hotel and then met in the lobby. But lo behold we discovered that no one had made an itinerary from this trip or knew what to do or where to go. Haha whoops! Luckily I went back to the front desk for some reason and found a note that the marrieds has left for us the night before. We found their room and joined in on their plans for the day. We planned on going to a canal street to go on a gondola ride and then hitting up another stop where they had found a massive Ferris Wheel. Sadly, it was POURING rain... so to by some time we went out to eat at Papa Johns and then wandered around in an arcade place.

This is a picture of the "big" prizes for the arcades... oh China.... rice cookers, microwaves, mops, steamer, crock pot, fan, pots, etc.

One of the metro stops (where the Ferris Wheel was at) was called Times Square and just down from that one was Central Park.... is this the Venice of China or the New York of China??

The rain had stopped just long enough for us to wander around the canal street, which was gorgeous! It looked like what I had envisioned all of China to look like.

Jambo anyone? So close China, so close.

Our "gondola ride" which was actually super fun.

The world would be a better place if everyone was as happy doing their job as this lady scooping garbage.

This is probably one of my most favorite China pictures. This is our boat chauffeur who kept us very entertained between his picture poses, letting us drive, and his almost-on-key serenades.  At one point he sang just to me and it was definitely a memory-maker.

The Ferris Wheel. So Awesome. We walked to the Ferris Wheel which was in the middle of this big amusement park. Unfortunately we walked to the gate and it was already closed for the night, the sign said 9:30 am-17:30 pm and it was 5:45pm when we had gotten there. BUMMER! So we chilled on the dock overlooking the big lake and the island for about 45 minutes before leaving. As we were sitting there, though,  we noticed the lights in the amusement park were turning on so we tried the gate one last time. Some Chinese girls were standing there too so we asked what was going on and they said they didn't know either so they hollered at a guard sitting inside and he laughed and said that we needed to go to the front gate to enter.... "She was looking kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an 'L' on her forehead!" We just looked at each other and laughed. We turned the corner and found this MASSIVE entrance gate which would have been VERY hard to miss had we just kept walking straight before. Once inside we used our student cards and only had to pay 20 yuan for the ticket, which is like 4 dollars. What? The park was pretty cool, especially at night and several of the rides, including the Ferris Wheel, were free. The roller coaster which we actually really wanted to go on was 40 yuan ($8) extra, which was a bummer, but oh well. The Ferris Wheel took 30 minutes to complete the circle because it was so massive so we bought some popcorn before and just enjoyed the ride. :D

That night we went back to our hotel. Amber, Ellen, Alyssa and I always share a room because it's much cheaper and we like being together! Usually, though, we get a room with two twin beds and push them together. This room only had one queen bed, and a smaller-than-usual queen bed I might add. Well needless to say that night was a bit squishy. This is a silly picture but it shows well just how close we slept that night. Oh memories :D

The next morning we headed back to the Times Square stop to watch the Dragon Boat Festival! The story behind this festival is that a guy that wrote poems about how he didn't like the government threw himself in the river when the government got really bad and the people who adored him threw in rice dumplings to keep the fish from eating his body and beat drums on boats to scare the fish away. So now they beat drums on boats while racing them on the lake and sell those rice dumplings on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival every year. Oh, and also while we were at the festival we bumped into a group of white guys from BYU! It was fun to converse with them and hear there experiences. They're in China for about 3 weeks interning for mechanical engineering. Then every place we went to after that we kept bumping into them again, it was funny.

We only had a little bit of time left before our train left but we were determined to see the leaning pagoda of China so we dashed to the Tiger Hill Scenic Area, took awesome pictures, then headed back out. It was a bummer we had to leave so quickly though because this place was Gorgeous! Oh, and we bumped into the BYU boys here again.

This picture is just a small glimpse of how pretty the Tiger Hill Scenic Area was.

The train ride back to Nanjing! Luckily we were all seated right next to each other, which doesn't happen that often. I have definitely spoiled myself... the K trains are way cheaper but the fast trains like this one are just so much more clean and way faster.

Ok these next to pictures are just silly. We were walking on the street one night and these Asians were trying to sell their puppies and they were probably the cutes dogs I have every seen. I'm not much of a dog person but if I ever did get a dog then it would be this kind. We all fell in love so quickly. Oh, and I would name it Xinjiekou (Shin-Jay-Koe) after the transfer subway stop.

A Big Weekend

We are running out of weekends, can you believe that!? All of us are feeling some of the-end-is-coming affects and are getting anxious to see our families and friends again, so we are planning smaller trips for these last couple of weekends to keep our minds busy. Someone on the Branch had mentioned the "Venice of China" so we thought we'd give it a try! Another big performance was this Friday for our kids which the Chinese Teachers took care of so we didn't have ILP or ELE classes, surprise! On Monday was the Dragon Boat Festival so Friday the older kids had tables set up all around the court yard where they sold food that they had made. There was also a Dragon Boat Quiz and a DIY dumpling making class. So basically we just had fun around the school all Friday. Then Saturday we went to this massive lake next to the Nanjng City wall where we had a picnic, enjoyed the weather, and just relaxed.

On the way to the Nanjing Wall/Lake we bumped into the creepy Youth Olympics creature.

We had a bit of a picnic on the rocks across from this gorgeous river view.

Not sure why, but all of the trees has red strips hanging from them. My awesome roommate and I always joke about how many things happen in China that we are curious about but we will never get the answer for.

And here we have this little boy... He looked absolutely darling walking up to us and so I asked to take a picture with him but as soon as his mom started taking the picture he slumped his shoulders and pulled this face! Then after about 30 seconds he had HAD it and folded his arms and turned away from me! I totally got rejected by a 5 year old! 

This is us on the Nanjing Wall! It's 600 hundred years old and one of the last city walls standing in China because President Mao knocked the rest down to "unite" China.

And this is the awesome looking gate to the river.  I love looking back at these pictures and zooming in on the Asians in the background. The guy on our left is holding a broom... why? Who knows :D

Shanghai: 3rd time's the charm

The very first time we went to Shanghai, the marrieds and the Head Teachers split off from our group and went to the Animal Park and Aquarium. Ever since that weekend we have been trying to plan an "Animal Trip" to Shanghai but literally every weekend for the past 5 weekends has been rainy even though the week days previous have been sunny and beautiful. I'm happy to announce that this past weekend we successfully went to Shanghai and had an eventful "Animal Trip."

Welcome to Shanghai

When I got train tickets for the trip to Shanghai, I got them to go as soon as possible.  Apparently I got the train that left a little too soon because we had to run, literally, to catch our train. When we got on and were all settled, it was all worth it though because that was the nicest train, even nicer than the Korean Air, that I have ever ridden on.

We got there Friday night and quickly caught a taxi to try to catch the underground shopping place before it closed. The taxi driver was crazy and we had quite the hilarious and memorable ride.

Unfortunately we were too slow and the shopping place had closed, but nearby was our favorite rice and curry chicken place!

After getting chicken we cruised around The Bund for a little bit and took pictures near the Oriental Pearl Tower... no big deal ;)

The next day we woke up bright and early to head to the Wild Animal Park. Our hotel told us to catch this bus that would take us straight there but no one around the bus station could figure out what we wanted to what we were saying so it literally took us 1 1/2 until we found a mini bus that would drive us there for a decent price. Once we arrived the Welcoming Show was still going on and there were street performers lining the sidewalks along with all sorts of animals that you could pay to ride or take pictures with.

We planned out our day so that we could make it to all of the animal performances that were being put on. The first one we went to was the tiger feeding. They had a zip line that they wheeled out hooked meat to the tigers and made the tigers put on a show to get their food.

At on point the strung out the food just far enough that it was dangling over the water so the tigers had to jump up and land in the water to get it. I don't know if that is humane or not... but the tigers seemed to enjoy it and it was really entertaining to watch!

I'm in China, of course I had to take pictures of the pandas!

This was one of the final shows; it was almost like a circus performance with a little bit of everything.

Oh yea, and I held a baby white tiger, no big deal.

Oh yea, I rode an elephant :D

And a camel!

A flock of China babies on a sign, just because.

 

Then, after the Wild Animal Park we headed to the Ocean Aquarium. There were 3 different floors of all sorts of water creatures! All of the escalators were in a glass tunnel so you could watch the fish, ducks, and turtles swimming around as you went down.

 

At the Aquarium they also had different shows of feeding seals or penguins but the coolest show was the stingray. This guy was swimming around underwater with the sting ray and put on a bit of a show with them as he fed them… it was super cool.

Next we entered the worlds longest glass tunnel with all sorts of fish, sharks, creatures, coral, etc.

The speed trains are really nice, clean, and convenient but you just don't get the same experiences and stories that would would on a slow train. This boy and his Grandfather shared a seat next to me and he was the most darling thing. I glanced over at the phone he was playing with and I saw that he had secretly taken a picture of another blonde teacher that was sitting near us in ILP and so I let him take an actual picture of me and he thought that was the funnest thing. After that we just kept taking pictures of each other for a while.

Now this guy, this is classic. He whipped of his shirt and basically pranced around for a while to get attention. When the attention started to die down, he hopped up on his chair for everyone to see! When someone snitched on us and told him we were taking pictures he turned around all cocky and bold-like and then just got too embarrassed and had to sit down.

This lady boarded the train a few stops after we did. She started talking to us in English and we kept chatting the rest of the time. Encounters like this are priceless, I have so many pictures of the awesome people that we meet on K trains. We we became more comfortable and familiar with each other she offered her Chinese speaking skills to help us figure out a ticket situation and later secretly interpreted for us what people around us were talking about... often it was about us! Now I wonder just how often that happens!