Danielle In Real Life

Buy me a ticket to Paris! Bangladesh! Beijing! ....all within a block of your own home

2012-01-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

Something that I have always loved about BYU is all of the free activites that are offered. Something great is BYU's International Cinema filled with all sorts of films, this week they have the film The Tuesday, Forever Enthralled from China, Smoke Signals, and a Spanish film.

And it's all for free! Go check out the international cinema, take a date, and enjoy your time! all in 250 SWKT.

"And what are you...A SHEEP?" --Mushu from Disney's Mulan

2012-01-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

Happy start Chinese New Year yesterday! Alright so I am FHE mommy and with that comes a lot of planning activities! I also returned from a mission in Taiwan five months ago yesterday as well. So being FHE mommy I wanted a little bit of culture. Yesterday, the 23rd was a wonderful day and the start of Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year. Now that I reflect back on our FHE evening, without media our evening would have been incomplete.

We first learned out to make paper cranes using YouTube. Thank goodness youtube is apart of my life. So pull up a chair, get out a piece of paper and make one yourself!

After we watched this video we were still having difficulties and continues to try and make cranes while we watched Disney's beloved Mulan. It is a rather clever film, filmed in 1998 starring Ming-Na, Eddie Murphy, Miguel Ferrer and B. D. Wong. It's got great music, culture, and an adorable cricket that I hope to have as a pet one day.

Disney movies never get old, especially this one. Please, if you have not seen this movie yet, it should be the next one on your list.

Here are our cranes as they turned out!

The genius of Google

2012-01-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how convenient our lives are. I think back to the days when our parents would have to go to the library and pick out books and write note cards about the books that they wanted to include in their research paper. Now we've got Ebsco, google scholar, etc. So many things to help us out. This is the most recent thing that has simplified my life: bookmarks.

I have all that I want at the touch of my hands: grooveshark, Dr Coyne's blog all within a click. and all you have to do to have this amazing add on is to drag the web address and drag it down to the bar. Yay enjoy!

Congress Please don't Censor the Web!

2012-01-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

Today while I was trying to find some general information I came across all of these websites posting their protest against congress censoring the web. Just through this little uproar I was able to find out I really use media a lot! Here are the websites I came across where they are protesting against congress:

wikipedia-I couldn't even search anything on that site!
grooveshark-I could still use music, but it made me aware that if congress censors the web life would be radically different
of course google, where the little google icon was hidden. what would life be like without google? how'd our ancestors do it?

This is supposedly called the SOPA blackout: protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA for short) in the House of Representatives and the Protect IP Act in the Senate — has spread across the web today, perhaps the most widespread online lobbying effort ever coordinated by Internet entities.

This was an act to stop piracy, which the idea is good. Is stopping our whole connection to the web what will stop piracy? are we that low? can we not stop our poor habits?

I love you wiki! I love you google! I love you internet! Don't leave me.

The reality of Facebook

2012-01-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

How many of you go on facebook and the first place your eye lingers to are the three little symbols in the upper left hand corner? We have our dear *friend requests, * messages, *and notifications. You never know what those little red numbers mean....perhaps it's that boy in your English class or girl in Chinese class that you've been hoping would finally take interest in you.

I am pretty sure that those three little symbols release endorphins...it means, "oh someone thought about me!" or "someone has something to say to me!" You could have won a million dollars, someone perhaps has a great story, joke, or youtube video to share with you. All is possible when you see those red dots with numbers in them appear on your screen.

I liked this facebook picture and feel it tells the truth. :)

What're your thoughts? What do you think when you see those numbers get high when you open facebook?

Time Down the Drain

2012-01-10T22:39:00.001-07:00

Here is my first post for the media that I come across. This website, http://iwastesomuchtime.com/ is fantastic and basically a collection of different random pictures, comics, and facts that are found throughout the day. Here are some examples:

Nice, and true

A random comic strip.

So go and check out this website and you'll be sure to be addicted for a long time, one of the great things about the media.

The Beginning of the End

2009-06-30T23:25:00.001-06:00

[Dad here. I’m hoping this will be my last “translation” of Danielle’s blog. I know you’ll miss me about as much as I’ll miss doing these. I must say that I found a spiffy blog editor that allows me to insert pictures where they should go, rather than having to move the HTML for the picture from the top of the blog (where Blogger insists on pasting them) to where it needs to go. Enjoy the blog!]

I have finished teaching. It is hard to believe I have completed my job here. It was extremely bitter-sweet goodbye because I had to leave so many students and friends who I have come to love at such a deep level.

There was a party for all of the English teachers the last week. We had a big banquet and then sang at a KTV (karaoke). I had the pleasure of dancing with several teachers and singing many songs including, “My heart will go on.” “Yesterday Once more”, “Country Road”. Pretty much songs my mothers generation would listen to.

Picture of some of my favorite students.

For my classes this week I showed them pictures of my Beijing trip. I showed the picture of the great wall, Wei Chen (famous singer in China…the girls flipped that I was able to see him in real life!), and the basketball team that we ran into. They couldn’t believe that there are so many foreigners!

I love this picture because it has my favorite students (ok, all of them are my favorite students), but I’m also wearing my, “I love China” shirt. It’s the epitome of all things I love.

In class I also sang a Chinese song, “Xiao Jio Wo” that some students taught me. They were really impressed that I could sing a Chinese song. After introducing my Chinese song, I taught them Backstreet Boys, “As Long As You Love Me.” They LOVE Backstreet Boys here. I felt bad encouraging Backstreet Boys, but then I wanted to teach them something that they love and always listen too.

As my week came to an end I realized that I need to take some pictures of the things I love. I would walk past hair salons and these guys would sit out on the street with crazy hair and I couldn’t resist taking a picture with them.

This Is Tony, a grade 3 student, and his good friend. When I came back to the school I noticed that all of the grade 3 students were gone. They had taken their College Entrance Exam (huge examination they need to take to get into a good university) and were out of the school. It was a shock for me to see all of the classrooms empty and the lights off! It made me sad actually. My grade 2 students are now grade 3 students and switched classrooms. I felt like a parent who has seen my children grow up and move to the next grade. It was exciting that they have grown up but sad that this time in their life has come to a close. Some students did not like their classroom because they were really close to the WC and it’ll get really smelly in the summer.

Chandler, a teacher, took us to dinner one night and while at dinner a man asked Savanna and I if we wanted a free hair style (this was all translated to us of course). Savanna and I were up for it. They wanted us to come to their hair salon so we could advertise for their company. Free head/shoulder massage, haircut and trim by attractive Chinese. What could be better?

My stylist. I had a little crush on him.

402 class. My favorite class. They definitely have a special place in my heart. Some of my favorite students are in this class. Cash He, Peter, Hero and many others.

After classes I’d take the classes outside to take pictures. This kid, Andy/Jacob, was so adorable. He asked me, “Danielle, can you give me a hug?” He told me that he was really going to miss me.

I had to sell back my bike, Peter, Jay and Hero helped me sell back my bicycle. We walked all around town trying to find a person to buy back my bike. This man wouldn’t take it back. It was really interesting to be on the other side of selling back my bicycle. It sucks trying to start at a high price and then gradually go down. Peter was really good at selling back the bike. I got my bike for 140 yuan.

I needed to go to the internet café and I saw all of these dry lizards on the ground.

While taking pictures with students one day, a student asked me if I could go to the art room and be a model for their class. I loved it. I just sat there for 3 hours modeling and listening to music. It was a good life. During breaks students would ask me questions and then take care of me by buying water, mosquito repellent (they noticed that mosquito’s really love me…Thanks Dad for giving me B blood), and singing songs with me.

Seriously I’ve seen this, “Boys Need Yoga Too!” shirt everywhere.

My favorite cafeteria workers. I would eat lunch there after classes. They made the wickedest tofu.

When I got my face drawn I met a lady who works at the local kindergarten. I went and visited all of the kids. They were SO cute. We walked in on them when they had nap time. They were all laying in their beds awake. When the bell rang for them to get up the energy level went up by 100 percent.

Digging for gold. They were just sitting there chilling. We went to the 5-6 year olds and they gave us a play in English about little babies trying to find their mommies.

My most favorite food ever: Eggplant with Green Beans. I will definitely miss this food.

My restaurant workers. Love these girls. I met them the first couple days and have stuck with them through the months I have been there.

We met these students on the first day. They have been our friends ever since the beginning. They are always bursts of laughter whenever I see them.

See double?

Gate keeper. This guy is awesome. He would wave to us all the time and say, “HELLO!” really loud and then say, “Ni HAO” after. He scared both Savanna and me at first because I thought he wouldn’t let us out, but really he just wanted to make friends!

Our watermelon lady. I will miss them dearly. They became our mommies as we walked outside the gate. I’m pretty sure we kept their stand running with all of the watermelon and water we bought.

Motorcyclists outside of the school gate. They would line up waiting for people to ask them for a ride. They’d yell, “hello” to us as we’d walk by. They eventually knew we wanted to go one of two places: bus station or train station.

BuBuGao lady! She would take my bag every time I went into the supermarket. She became our buddy. She lent me some of her DVD’s and I we are now friends on QQ. Don’t know how that’ll work saying she doesn’t know English.

This was SO cute. When I went up to my apartment to get ready to go to dinner with friends all of my favorite neighborhood friends were there! It was a big party! They gave us presents and hugs. So adorable. It was so sad to say goodbye. I love these girls. Bobbie was also there to say goodbye.

Dinner with my favorite people: Savanna, Alex, Lucy, and Chandler. We went to a restaurant. I love these people. I couldn’t believe that I’d never see them again! I hope someday I will see them again.

Well Savanna and I then stayed up all night cleaning and packing to make our train the next day. Peter, Jay, Chandler and Mr. Beard came to the station to see us off.

It is hard to imagine that such an amazing experience has come to a close. Now it is just the beginning of a new life: traveling with two RM’s around China.

I am a True Woman

2009-06-16T20:16:00.122-06:00

[Dad here: I think we're zeroing in on the Danielle-in-China-to-Dad-in-Utah connection figured out. There's only one wierdnes. See if you can find it!)

Wow, what a couple weeks it has been! I of course have a zillion and two pictures to show you! Seriously, I have the best life in the world. My happy little life is going to end in only a month in a half's time...not enough time to do what I want.

So I finished classes on Tuesday afternoon and packed up to leave for XIAN, which is the home of the Terracotta soldiers. Savii and I tried to pack as light as week could because we knew we'd have to carry it with us for the two weeks duration. We also knew we had a 24 hour train ride ahead of us. The train was actually not that bad. Mostly I tried to learn Chinese songs, read Lonely Planet guide to figure out my life for the next month in a half, talk with people on the train, and watch the scenery pass you by.

(Take Care Of Your Treasures)

I love funny translations. This sign was above the sink on the train.

We got to the hostel late that night. First thing I noticed walking off the train in Xian: the air is DRY! I was immediately able to feel at home. Humidity is not my favorite thing.

Savii and I met up with the group and we went to the Bell Tower. During the Qing Dynasty they would strike a bell at dawn and dusk to signify that they time has come to wake up or go to sleep.

View of the street from the tower. People use umbrellas in China to shade themselves from the sun. Girls don't like the sun because they want to have white skin.

Reflection off of Amy's glasses of the flowers atop the Bell Tower.

Starbucks! Humanity! We were way excited to go to Starbucks and get a Frappachino and feel American once again.

The Drum Tower. It looked beautiful at night and the atmosphere was really good. Some of the people in the group got their faces drawn. There were a ton of stalls on Muslim Quarter, right next to the tower, which means that you can bargain! They had things ranging from bookmarks, dried fruit, kabobs, to knockoff designer bags. It was difficult to be there and not spend money. All of us everyday after shopping would say, ok I am done shopping...but we would buy more because everything is such a great deal.

While at the Drum Tower there were all of these people selling kites that would extend forever and ever in the sky. It was quite a spectacular sight to see all of this.

Next Day: Terracotta soldiersTerracotta soldiers! They exist. Any my oh my what an incredible sight to behold. The soldiers were discovered by a local farmer in 1976. He's not wealthy though, my tour guide said, but just famous...leave it to the government to take all of the money. There are 8,000 Terracotta Warriors and Horses. It is also called the "8th wonder of the world." There are three pits to see all of the soldiers. The first pit, is the biggest.

Some of the soldiers still have color after all of these years! Many of the soldiers are not yet excavated because with today's technology the color can't be preserved so many soldiers are still left uncovered to preserve their colors.

There was a Jade shop, where Amy bought some local Jade. They told us how you can tell if Jade is real or not: hold is up to the light to see if you can see the minerals in the rock, light the bracelet on fire (shouldn't melt if it's real), rub two bracelets together (shouldn't rub anything off if it's real).

After our little Jade exhibition, our tour guide took us to meet the farmer who found the warriors! Yep they're still alive. I bought some postcards that he signed as well. Woo! I'm sure someday they'll be worth millions.

Muslim Mosque! We went to a mosque that is really near by. While we were there we ran into a bunch of people from Spain! Sam served his mission in Spain and so he was was ecstatic to speak with people in Spanish. I love traveling because you meet people from all over the world!

3 languages! Arabic, Chinese, and English!

Muslims! I love their caps. It was really neat because we were there during prayer time. All of the sudden all of these men with their caps, started chanting and coming towards the front.

The place was so calm and peaceful, it was nice to be in a religious place after being in the hustle and bustle that the markets can bring.

I bought some real Jade for about 20 yuan (about $2.75). These ladies were on the Muslim Quarter market.

Packed buses. I was fortunate enough to get a seat. We were on our way to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Yeah the name is long. If only it was Big Goose Pagoda or Wild Goose Pagoda...Big Wild Goose Pagoda is a little much for me.

You can see the Pagoda in the background. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was built to house the Buddhist Sudra's brought to China from India by the monk Xuan Zhang.

It was SO rad at the pagoda. There was a ginormous water show right in front of the Pagoda. A Chinese girl took my hand and we ran through the water! We were soaked through and through by the time we were done. The group all got in and we were tangoing through the water, onlookers probably thought we were crazy Americans. But hey, you only live once. It was fun running through because a bunch of little boys would stand on the spouts and squirt water right into us.

Next day:These were my roommates from South Korea! They just got back from a trip from Tibet! They were totally awesome. They even gave me a Korean name: Jeong An. Which means: Clear Eyes. They said that this name really reflects me and the goodness of my heart. The older guy was on his year sabbatical and the one on the right is a famous photographer and traveller in South Korea and has a travel blog: noas.tistory.com. If you can read Korean check it out. It was interesting talking to them because the older guy would do all of the talking, while the younger didn't say a word...I think he knew English because he would nod in agreeance when the older guy would speak.

I signed the wall of the hostel. The walls were covered with people's signatures all over. Look to the right middle and you'll see my name.

Xianzimen youth hostel. I'm still not sure the difference between youth hostel and regular hostel. This hostel was amazing and was in an old time Chinese-style house.

We had to check out of our hostel before 12, so we had to lug our stuff around before we caught our train that evening to go to Beijing. We spent the day at Reservation Park. It was the neatest park ever. There were many things going on:including Beijing opera. Dancing, painting, carnival rides, yo-yo lessons, and a hammock park!

Alisa and I painted a picture as we waited for the time to pass by. After we were done, because we didn't want to hold onto it while traveling we gave it to a little girl. Her face lit up as we gave it to her.

Next Day: Train and Temple of Heaven (Sunday btw)

After we got to the Happy Dragon Hostel, we went to the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven is a complex of Taoist buildings that was built for Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to heaven for good harvest. While we were here there was also a bunch of free local entertainment. This is the happiest man I've ever met: he had no teeth and kept dancing around waving his pink fan.

Sam helped this old man down the stairs from his wheelchair. This place isn't very wheelchair friendly. I don't think I've climbed so many steps in my whole life.

There were a bunch of monks that were at the Temple of Heaven! Some of them were cute too. It was interesting to see monks outside of the monastery and doing normal day things like holding an umbrella, taking pictures, laughing, carrying a backpack. Yep, monks are real people too, not just people who are obsessed with communing with the One.

Me taking a picture of a monk taking a picture. I wonder if they feel like how we foreigners feel: people always taking pictures of them. It gets a bit annoying after awhile. Although, maybe they don't have annoying thoughts.

The monks were behind us!

The number of figurines represent how important a building is. The more there are, the more important the building.

Just chillin waiting for the rest of our homies. We still got several, "hello's" from people passing by. I thought that would have gone away since we were in a big city. People still wanted pictures with us too! Very strange I tell you.

So we wanted to see the new Night at the Museum movie at a local theater, but tickets were too expensive.

While at the theater, there were a big crowd of people grouped around holding light up signs. A guy there told us a famous singer and actor, Wei Chen, was going to make an appearance! Even though I did not know who this guy was: I saw a famous person in China!

Yeah he's good looking. It was difficult to take a picture of him because there were so many people in the way!

Next day: Rain, Rainy Monday
The hostel we're staying at offers a free bike tour around Beijing... We were going to go on it but we woke up to the pattering of rain. Ugh. But I guess rain is good luck in Beijing because it doesn't rain often there. We were lucky to see it rain. So because the rain ruined our plan we were going to go to Chairman Mao Memorial Museum, but it was closed, so we were going to go on an underground tour of old Beijing, but it was shut down too!

On our little walk around town, we walked through the alleyways. This is a guy's home! He had a cute little dog. The old man yelled, "Ni Hao" to us!

Because everything was closed we went to the Silk Street Market. Dude this is the coolest, most dangerous place to be if you have money in your pocket. The second I walked in I was overcome with: WANT of everything I saw. I have been told Beijing has really good shopping and it's true. You have to fight for your item and endure the workers guilt trips. But the challenge of bargaining is totally entertaining. I think I have learned the art of bargaining. They offer you a jacked up price and then you offer a really low price...like really low. I have been told to offer half, but even half price is jacked up.
It was really fun talking to the workers because they're just young girls or boys of age 19 or 20. They work 12 hours everyday and have only one day off a week. One girl I talked too, I was able to ask her about the real price of an item. Example: a wallet: 30 yuan, purse: 80 yuan. They'll ask you for about 400 yuan because, "it is good quality, real, hand-stiched, very beautiful on you, can't get this one anywhere else", but then you'll say, "no I want it for...such and such." then you'll go from there. Sometimes you'll have to walk out of the store and then they'll dramatically reduce the price. A girl told me it costs 1500 yuan to run a little shop each day.

I was with Sam while he was trying to get a dress shirt. The girls kept asking me if Sam was my boyfriend. Poor Sam...having all of these girls following him around. Where Sam goes, we go.

Acrobat Show! Incredible show.

How many girls do you see? I see three.

There are circles at the end of each. It spins around and there are two guys in there running and spinning around. A rat wheel to the extreme!

These three guys were my favorite. I'm not sure who has it worst: the guy on bottom, middle or top.

Now this is bicycle riding. Anyone one who rides a recumbent bike has nothing to top this.

Next day: Beijing bicycle

Jon, our friend of 19 years of age took us on a rain-free bicycle ride. It was fun first of all to be on a bicycle! It was also fun to see Beijing from a bicycles point of view. Beijing's population is 13 million and of this there are 3 million bicycle riders.

Entrance of Forbidden City!

We stopped at a local park to learn some dancing.

Local police officer chilling under the comforting shade of his umbrella.

On the way to the subway, my friend Lauren has been teaching me the tricks of abstract photography.

Next Day: The historical Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City.

This is Chairman Mao's museum. Supposedly his dead body is inside, but it's sometimes switched out with a wax copy while people work on his body to keep him looking good and trim.

So what happened at Tienanmen Square you ask? In 1976 a bunch of college students were protesting Communism and supporting Democracy. The government came in with their tanks and ran over a bunch of them to quiet them up. A bunch of people were killed during this process. But is was outside of the square that this happened. That's a watered down version, but there you have it.

Tienanmen Square is adjacent to Forbidden city. We are all stoked to be here! Tienanmen square is the biggest public square.

Kissing Mao Zedong. Don't tell mom! [Dad here: This picture previews on disk rotated correctly, but showed up in the blog rotated to the left. So I rotated it to the right, and you get this. Sorry. If you're playing Find the Weirdness this is it. You win!]

The Gate of Heavenly Peace. Mao's a handsome guy and also an important person in Chinese history! This is also seen on the way to the entrance of the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is home to two dynasties of emperors, the Ming and the Qing, who didn't leave the city unless they had to. When I first got to the city I kept thinking of Shanghai Noon when Roy O'Bannon says, "I like that, Forbidden City, a princess, kidnapped! It's so mysterious." I love how my reference to Chinese history is from Kung Fu Panda and Shanghai Noon.

Swastika on a statue. Thought it was interesting to see in the Forbidden city.

A worker taking his job seriously. It's really humorous to see how on top of things the staff can be here.

On the stonework, there were Dragons and Phoenix's. Dragons represent Emperors and Phoenix's Empresses.

Chinese soldiers, keeping our China safe by singing songs together.

Next Day: Danielle becomes a Woman

We joined a tour group for way cheap that we found in the Forbidden City (about 17 bucks, killer deal for all we got).

At the beginning of the tour we got to see the process of Jade making. The ball he is carving represents basically eternal families, how generations and generations are within one another and are protected throughout time.

This guy painting on the inside of a little globe. The Chinese sure have patience.

Visiting the Ming Tombs. They have statues of people and animals all along the walkway that leads to the tombs to protect the emperors. We actually never saw the tombs because our tour guide told us they're not interesting. We went shopping the night before and bought, "I love China" shirts. We bought them secretly so we could sport them on the Great Wall.

As I filled up on a delicious Beijing-style meal (delish by the way, because the food is more American style Chinese food than Hunan's spicy food. All of us were dying with satisfaction), I thought of the quest ahead of me: ascend the Great Wall. I met a friend along the way, He wore an, "I love Beijing" shirt (which means center land), and he wanted a picture with me.

We got to take a ski lift type chair up to the Great Wall. While riding on the chair I thought of Chairman Mao's famous words, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man". I'm going to the Great Wall today...I'm going to the Great Wall today! I've only read about this in history books or seen it on TV!

Yep the Great Wall is real.

Yeah we totally ignored this sign and kept on walking. It was cool to go past the wall and go to a part where it hasn't been renovated and trees were growing on the wall. It made me realize that the wall really is very old! We went to the Mutianyu part of the wall. It's renowned for its Ming dynasty guard towers and stirring views. I really liked this part of the wall because it's less touristy and is a less commercial experience.

The wall was begun over 2000 years ago during the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC) and was used as a military force and for communication.

Fact: the great wall cannot be seen from space.

Wo Ai Zhongwo! Pinyin for: I love China! Behind us you see an older, non-renovated part of the wall. Oreo to the extreme.

Us in one of the many towers that is famous at the Mutianyu part of the wall.

On the way down we got to ride on what is like the "alpine slide" in Utah. Wicked awesome way to go down from the Great Wall.

On our tour we also saw the Beijing Olympic sights: Bird's Nest!

Water Cube! We never went inside because I guess it's not really all that important (okay it's important, but there is a ton to do in only a few days in Beijing).

We went on a tour to see how silk was made...Not exactly my cup of tea. But it was interesting to see how it was made. They boil silk worms pupa and then the strands that are around them are the strands that are used to make silk. It takes like 180,000 puppas to make a quilt or so. It's a pity that they had to be killed. I have to admit I really like silk, but don't want it for myself.

At the end of the road they dropped us off at the Pearl Market, which I guess is a new market where the prices are lower and there isn't as much room for bargaining like at the Silk Street Market.

After Pearl Market we ran into an American Basketball team. I've decided that black men are rather attractive. They were so tall. I was stoked to see them so I could see the basketball team and show my students the picture. They love Kobe and Yao Ming. I've developed more love for basketball since coming. Dude they were really tall.

Sitting in the middle of the train station on the floor, while trying to figure out how to get back to our cities. I debated whether to leave with the group or stay another day and visit my friend at Beijing University....staying was what I finally decided.

Next Day: Summer Palace, Pandas, Kung Fu, and Night Markets

Our last activity before our group split off (some were going to go back to America, some were going to teach longer, and some had to go back early to their schools). We ended up going to Summer Palace. The summer palace is where all the emperors would go for a getaway from the Forbidden City.

Me, Jessa, and Ceira all stayed an extra day and took a Dragon Boat across the river to the Summer Palace. I got to hold a little baby while I on the ride. So cute. I love the Chinese kids.

So after the Summer Palace we were going to go the Zoo. We decided to take a little bike-pulled cart to the subway...bad idea. We thought we got a good deal, but the guy pulled three girls (not Chinese girls either) to the subway. It was extremely painful to watch him breakout a sweat and start breathing really hard. We thought he said it was 3 yuan to go to the subway for all of us. While he was pulling us we talked with each other and said, "maybe we'll give him nine, three from all of us." We'll we couldn't stand it anymore and we took the bus instead. He told us, "30 yuan instead of 3...PER Person". We said, no and ended up giving him 10 instead of 30. It was painful to watch and painful to give him the money.

Yep I saw a Panda...IN China btw. We came at the perfect time to watch the panda because we got to watch it eating the bamboo. It was so fun because he just kept eating and eating, then laid down took a couple minute nap and then kept eating...talk about a power nap!

The life cycle of a panda. We didn't see the rest of the zoo because we've heard from many sources that the cages are really small and not well taken care of for the other animals.

Next we went to Behai Park. It was very peaceful. We saw the strangest thing while we were there: this guy was totally massaging and pinching this woman's boob. She seemed to enjoy it too. It wasn't a disgusting thing to watch, but more a, "why, seriously, why are you doing that?"

Wishing well. My wish came true too. It's what I've been wishing for every time I need to make a wish. It's my secret though.

We had a terrific Beijing style meal that evening. Jessa and Cierra found sweet and sour pork. They were stoked about it. American Chinese food can be found in China.
We went to the Kung Fu show that evening. It was amazing! I was able to learn about Kung Fu more. I didn't realize that people dedicate their lives to Kung Fu. They literally become monks. There are 7 steps to becoming a Kung Fu master: Initiation (arrive to temple), learning (study hard), casting (body turns to iron), illusion (dealing with physical needs), remorse (not following the way leads to remorse), temple gate (accomplish final task to become a monk warrior), epilogue (old master passes on a stave and new master is an Abbot).

It was fun to get a picture with the kids behind us, but the little boys were so tired! They could barely keep their hands up. Poor kids.

Next day: Independence, Beijing University, and almost missing my train...again.

So I slept with Jessa and Cierra in their hostel room. I slept in while they took off for the bike ride they missed out on earlier in the week. While they were gone I went to Jingshan Park. It was splendid and had a breathtaking view of the Forbidden city and the skyline of Beijing.

There was a Buddhist temple at the top of the park. I took a picture of the Buddha, which was lucky I got it. The guy who was on security said, "hello! hello!" to keep me from taking it. But a hah! I got it.

I took a bus from the hostel to Beijing University. By myself I might add. I had to find the right bus to go the the school. Chinese people are so helpful. When I got on the bus, there was only me, the bus driver, this other lady, and this old man (which is surprising because 1/5 of the world's population is in China). The old man tried to tell me something about a mountain, 21 people, and how hot it is. I didn't know what he was talking about because of the language barrier, but it was hilarious to watch him Mime out what he was saying.

I met up with Landon and his friend Shawn (I gave him the English name. I think it fits him). Landon was so excited to see me. He was bursting with excitement and kept telling me how happy his father is and that he wants to take me to dinner when I get back to Dongan.

I met Landon's roommates. It blows my mind that they live with 9 people in a room. It was funny because I walked in and sat down in a chair. It was interesting because I thought there were only four people in the room when I heard a, "how beautiful." from behind me. There were 3 guys sitting right behind me I didn't even notice them. They were very welcoming and were hoping I could stay for a long time. While talking with them I got a text from Megan saying, "don't forget your painting at the hostel..." UGH I forgot my painting at the hostel...meaning I had to leave earlier to go and get it.

We played pool together. Landon showed me around his University. Supposedly 3 black men are being students at their school for 2 weeks. That'd be an interesting experience as a student. I would not like to experience it. We had to end our time together quickly because we had to get the painting from the hostel. It was enjoyable to go back...but stressful as well because traffic was bad and I needed to make my train. We made it to the hostel and then made it to the train station in time.

I got to ride the train back myself!

I met the cutest little boy while on the train. He kept calling me, "ayi" which is aunt in Chinese. He kept making faces at me like sticking out his tongue and saying, "hello". It was adorable. He then gave me a sucker. He also gave me a kiss on my arm and hands. I got kissed by a China boy! My dream came true.

It was amazing how excited I was to get back to school. More excited than going to Beijing. It felt so nice to be back and know that I am home. When I got off the train the humidity kicked me in the face...but besides the humidity I was so excited to return. I walked to the street to hail a motor-taxi, when all of them said, "yi zhong!" "yi zhong" which translates to, "1 school". Which is my school. They all know I'm the foreign teacher at the school. One guy took my suitcase and put it on his motorbike before I said okay to him.

I am in my last week of teaching right now and am busy packing things up. This entry took FOREVER to write and I don't have much time to write it. I should go to bed. I just wanted to update you on my life. Life is so magical here. I say that every time, but really life is amazing. Make it happen. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Not sure where I'll be the next time I post a blog. I'll be traveling a lot this upcoming month and not quite sure where my life will lead. I'm really hoping and praying i can make it to Tibet. The problem is I don't have any fellow companions to go with me because they are all going back home to America! We'll see what happens. It's incredible what life can bring. Make it happen.

The moral of this story is: Danielle is a Woman for climbing the Great Wall. Kudos to me.

Dragon Boat Festival

2009-05-30T16:51:00.027-06:00

[Danielle's Dad here. China is still blocking access to blogspot.com (this blog site) and Danielle and I have been playing email tag with this post. There seems to be one fewer pictures than paragraphs. I get the pictures in one big ZIP file and the pictures are numbered, but I can't assume that the picture number has anything to do with the order they appear in the post. So, I'm putting all of the pics at the bottom, in numerical order and You'll see what I mean. The last numbered picture is at the very bottom (A bunch of dishes of food), but the last paragraph says "Dragon." I hope you'll understand my dilemma. Read, then enjoy the pictures. Make a game of matching the pictures to the paragraphs. There is no wrong answer (that I know of)!]

Hello world! It’s been a crazy past couple days and I have been able to come in contact with the Chinese mentality a little more, which is a lot different from the American mentality. I’ll explain: we are coming to the end of our teaching here in Dongan and we have a holiday next week. For our holiday we wanted to leave a day early and travel with the group to Beijing…needless to say that day off early ended up in many complications with our school telling us our last day of class would be on Tuesday instead of our planned on ending day of June 19th. I did not want that because I wanted to teach the last week to say goodbyes to the students. It amazes me how something as simple as getting a day off can be a complicated mess…through many complications and trying to talk to the head master, Savanna and I are able to go with our group on Tuesday night and teach the last week in Dongan so we can say goodbye to our students. Something that should have been easy to solve…ended up being a 3 day ordeal.

Chinese cooking lesson from Alex and Lucy…complete with tomato juice. I thoroughly enjoyed being in a Chinese household. They had posters of pictures with English captions for Lucy’s nephew to learn English. They even had a calendar with Lucy’s nephew in it…for December they showed the little boy laying down peeing out a little stream into nothingness. Lucy said, “this one’s my favorite!” Savanna and I were like, “Yeah….it’s cute….” Just shows the difference between American culture: we want those parts covered up, and Chinese culture: they aren’t afraid to let them show and are even proud of them!

Realizing that the weather is changing…my long pants and dress pants would not suffice and I needed a pair of good shorts for traveling to Beijing. I found some! It was quite the experience trying to find some big enough for my American body! I would go into a store and say, “ni you san chi yi?” and sometimes I would be lucky and they’d say, “you-Yes” or I’d have to go to the next store and try my luck. What I love…ok not really, about Chinese dressing rooms is that the mirror is outside of the stall, so you have to go out in your clothes for everyone to see how they fit you. Luckily, I found a cute pair of gray cut offs that’ll be perfect for walking the Great Wall.

After shopping I tried to catch a bus to the train station to go back to Dongan (Yongzhou has the best shopping), but I missed the train by 10 minutes. The next train didn’t leave for 3 hours so I went to a nearby restaurant to eat some food. At the restaurant one of the girls could speak a little broken English. We had a fun culture exchange…they were able to teach me some Chinese and I was able to teach them some English. Above are the friends I made at the restaurant. The guy owned a hotel in Yongzhou and said that I am welcome there anytime I come back to Yongzhou.

I went to dinner at some of my students’ home; Darcy and Angela. Darcy’s original name was Bill, but Savanna and decided that it should be Darcy because he is charming like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Their father is very rich; one thing about the Chinese is that they aren’t afraid to show off what they have. He works in the athletic department in Dongan. His uncles are also very wealthy. Darcy’s uncle wanted Savanna and I to have tea with him in his home, but he ended up just showing us his place instead. It was filled with nice rocks, paintings, furniture, and other doodads meaning a lot of money!

Webcam! Our internet has been really retarded lately so I’ve been chilling at the local internet café. The computers have webcams and so I was FINALLY able to see my family after many months! Our family has a laptop so Harrison gave me a tour of our home and the beautiful outdoors. I have missed whole wheat bread terribly so I asked Harrison to eat a piece of whole wheat bread for me. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this monumental moment.

For my classes this week I’ve taken my kids to the media room so we could watch an American movie. I really wanted to watch Shanghai Noon, but I couldn’t find a copy anywhere…so we watched Spiderman 2 the first part of the week. Thankfully one of my students showed me how to download movies from the internet so we’ve watched Shanghai Noon with Jackie Chan the whole week. I pretty much have the first 30 minutes down by heart. The most entertaining part of this movie is watching these students bust up with laughter watching how ridiculous Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson are together.

Some of my favorite one-liners are:

“Holy crap! The vultures are eating my head!”

“Come here devil woman.”

“That’s because they’re not Injuns woman, they’re Jews!”

Yesterday was the Dragon Boat Festival…one of the things they eat for the festival is zongzi. Zongzi are made with sticky rice, beans, and wrapped in Bamboo leaves. They’re okay…not exactly my favorite but nice and filling. This picture is a demonstration given at the local supermarket: Bu Bu Gao on how to make zongzi.

The people at the supermarket really wanted me to make one. So there’s me, the tall one in the middle, attempting to make a zongzi…they’re harder to make than they look.

For the Dragon Boat Festival Savanna and I went to Chandler’s home for lunch. His parents gave us zongzi to eat. They also gave me some peppermint essential oil to put on my mosquito bites. I have like 20+ over my body. It’s ridiculous because I don’t even know where they’re coming from. I hate them though. Especially when I’m sleeping and I wake up to them buzzing in my ear.

After lunch, Chandler, Savanna, Alex and I went to enjoy the boat riding competition. I guess it’s not an actually a competition…but more like a stroll in the river and the competition will be later this week. This mother and child are hitting a drum celebrating the start of the Dragon Festival!

The bottom of the boat before it enters the water. The people waxed the bottom of the boat with pig guts and then processed to throw the guts in the river.

This is the head of the boat…a dragon. Does that surprise you? It’s interesting how in Chinese culture a dragon is cunning and powerful but in American culture we see them as dangerous creatures to be slain by Prince Charming.

Taking the boat to the river.

And they’re off!

Dragon Boat Festival celebrates some famous guy that I can’t remember the name of now from 2,000 years ago.

I leave for Xian in…4 days! And then I’ll go to Beijing! Can’t believe I’m going to one of the most famous places in the world. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. Then I have one final week of teaching! Then I’m not sure what I’ll be doing…I’ll be free to travel for a month until I go to summer camp in Hefei, Anhui at the end of July. Woo! Never a boring moment in China.

Dragon

No Free Agency

2009-05-22T10:34:00.034-06:00

[Danielle's Dad, here. This was a bit of work to get this post into the system. I had to go into Danielle's email, grab the web document and save the pictures, copy the text into the blog, then grab the pix and put them in the (hopefully) right place. I'm glad I got to see what's going on before everyone else!]

So Blogger is now blocked in China and I can't access it from here. I am emailing my father my posts so we'll see how this works out.

I have some good news and some bad news. I'll tell you the good news first. The good news is: I'm staying in China for another month! The bad news is: I'm staying in China for another month! I have decided to extend my stay in China an extra month so I can teach at a summer camp in Hefei, Anhui province. It'll be two weeks at the end of July (July 12-25). I'm really excited because basically I'll be a Chinese EFY counsellor for a couple weeks...except without all the praying, hymn singing, and testimony bearing... although I do think there will be much singing involved. Especially because I have recently begun to learn the guitar...

Anhui is right next to Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi... Etc. What's really sweet about this place is that it is close to Shanghai, Hengyang mountains (Yellow Mountains), and many other cool places.

So that's a little update on what is to come in my life. The school year is ending over here. I only teach two more weeks! I keep having China moments over here where I can't believe that my experience here is coming to an end. But then I think that I have much traveling ahead of me and that I still have much of this journey to experience. Time is an interesting thing.

Ok so I love this kid. He totally makes my life happy. He is totally an American rambunctious kid. I feel like to many times kids don't have a mind of their own and they obey their parents to much. Okay I take that back...the kids are real great here. I love them so much. I told this kid that I wanted to take him home to America...he was scared of me after that. I have to be careful with my humor here.

Savanna's birthday! and not just any birthday: her 19th birthday! The cakes here are interesting: it tastes like regular cake, but with whipped cream instead of frosting. The decorations are way intense. We had some of the English teachers over for cake. Savanna got a chinese bra, a card to stick in her wallet (supposedly it'll make her lucky, rich, and make a lot of money), a jade cross necklace, and another bracelet. Totally the birthday of her life!

These are the guests that came to the party. Going from left to right we have History teacher, Lucy, Alex, Landon (history teachers son), Savii, Chandler, Mr. Beard, John, and ME!

Chinese 把把。 Chinese Baba! Chinese Daddy. He seriously is my father here. He is more protective of me than my own parents...kind of annoying at times, but I love it nonetheless. It's nice to know I have a daddy over here! Of course my own father can never be replaced.

I love this lady. She works at the restaurant that Savii and I always eat at. I asked her if I could watch her cook Eggplant...seriously it's to die for. So this is in the back of the restaurant.

This guy brings me and Savanna water when we need it. He always laughs whenever he answers the phone because I can't understand a word of what he's understanding...really pathetic really on my part.

Right now he is playing Crochet. The old men do this all of the time. There is a crochet park right by us.

Went on a bike ride with my student Jack and another girl in Jack's class. We were playing cards at the government building (nicest building in Dongan), when I ran into my river friend! He invited all of us to dinner. He told me that he wants me to come to China once a year and visit him. This is a perfect example of the friendliness of the Chinese people. His daughter teaches English and he said that she will also call me once a year so I will never forget him. I love Chinese people.

It was funny because when we went to the restaurant, I told them that I don't like meat...and eggs, and only just a little spice. So they brought out all of these steamed vegetables with no seasoning, only salt.

......

I went to Xiangtan to visit friends because my students had exams for two days...meaning I didn't have to teach! Xiangtan is about 6 hours away from me. So I took a sleeper train to see them. I had a two day holiday. SAWEET. What is great about the Chinese way of things is that they tell you last minute that you have a break. I found out two days before my students that they had exams...Love it.

So I took the train, by myself let me tell you. It was quite the adventure! My train was supposed to make it to Xiangtan at 5:00am. I woke up on the train at 5:47am....needless to say the attendant didn't wake me up! I had to get off the train, take another one back to Xiantan University. I'm just grateful I didn't sleep any longer.

It was Melinda's birthday so we went to Pizza Hut to celebrate. It was way fun to have good pizza when I hadn't had it for several months.

I really enjoyed going to Xiangtan because I got to see part of the group that I didn't get to see when I was in Hong Kong. It was fun talking to people who I hadn't seen since the beginning of the trip. I was able to watch The Office, have American food, and some good conversations with some good friends. I also co-taught Melinda and Jason's class. We played Boggle in the classes. I loved seeing what a Chinese University is like. There are only 30 students in their classes, they teach only 2 classes (several times a week). So they are really close to their students, plus their students don't have to study as much so they hang out with them all of the time. I'm totally jealous because I'd love to hang out with my kids more! One girl asked how old I was, she said, "I think you are 20 because we get along so well". The students loved me! I love that I am welcomed where ever I go.

John, Me, and the Birthday Girl!

We went to an arcade after eating tons of food. I totally rocked at the arm wrestling match. I also ruled at the racing game. I beat an Australian and several Americans.

Chinese graffiti in a Xiangtan park.

While all of us; Clarke, Jason, Melinda, and I were going to the park we came accross a Chinese pet market! Above is a cage filled with turtles.

This guy was really trying to get us to buy his dog.

We went on a little boat ride before I had to leave on my train back to Dongan.

Back to Dongan! All of the students had to compete in a Kung Fu competition.

Scenery around Dongan on one of my walks:

A farmers market.

We cooked American food for Alex and Lucy: Hashbrowns, Eggs, fruit, and toast. They actually liked it! It was their first time having jam and ketchup...of course not together but with their hashbrowns and toast.

Guitar lessons! One of my students is letting me and Savii borrow her guitar. This is Savii teaching Alex her sweet moves. He has had no prior music instruction but he is picking up guitar rather quickly!

Ok, so this explains the randomness of China. Mr. Beard told us a couple days ago that we were going to a foreigners party for Yongzhou area and to prepare a performance piece for the group.

The people with the sashes are getting awarded for teaching for over year.

We went to see a temple with all of the foriegners and our liasons. Mr. Beard and the vice president of the school came with.

This is the most foriegners I've seen in a long time. It's just funny how I people want pictures

with us. I really don't know why they have a fascination with foreigners.

Picture of Me, Amy, and Savii.

Centerpieces at the temple. This cow had a tail in it's mouth...supposedly it represents the beginning: the head, and the end: tail of all things.

Worshipping Buddah...ok so a little sacriligious. It makes a good picture k?

Beautiful scenery at the party.

"Daniceel&Sawanna edeleiss". Yep that's our name on the program. We were put down to sing Edelweiss. We were the first to preform. By the time they got it working alright for us, we were finished. Our liazon told us that it should be longer...it's just ironic because he told us to make it shorter. We were going to sing, "Tears in Heaven" Savii's wicked awesome guitaring at that song. I actually sang for a whole crowd! and I sounded semi good! I still can't believe that I did it. I've avoided singing in public my entire life since coming to China. I've probably sung for about 1500 people by now since coming to China (this included my classes). I taught my class, "Take me to your heart" this past week and totally was off pitch and off key but at least my volume was alright.

Lucy and Alex cooked for us. I thoroughly enjoyed going to a Chinese home. We went dancing afterwards.

There you go. There's an update on what's been happening in my life. I love it here. I am finally getting into the groove of teaching...I feel relaxed and love my students so much. I played, "do you love your neighbor" this past week with all of my classes. It was quite the event. These kids never leave the classroom so they were stoked to not have to sit in their class.

I just had a 2 and a half hour Chinese lesson with some of my favorite students. It was more like it was a cultural exchange and I learned a little Chinese but we had fun.

Well my time is about up at the internet cafe I better go.

To the Best Mother in the World

2009-05-10T06:39:00.008-06:00

Happy Mother's Day! I want to dedicate this little video specifically to my mother, but also to many other ladies who have helped me come so far and continue to support me in all I do. Mother's are probably one of the best things in the world. If the world was going to end, the one thing I'd try to keep safe would be my mom! The Mother's touch really is the best thing in the world. I hope my Mom and all of my other mom's know that I love you and I hope life brings you all that you desire because you definitely deserve it. There is nothing like hope and love that a mother has for her child. I appreciate all you do. My Chinese sisters send their love (make sure your volume is turned up)!

I love you!

To the Center of Hong Kong and Back

2009-05-06T00:20:00.051-06:00

So of course a lot has happened and I have neglected my blog for a couple weeks....which is a very bad idea! We've had the past couple weekends off for the May holiday and to renew our visa's which has been most excellent. It is crazy that I love traveling so much, but I also love and crave the comfort of home in Dongan. It will be nice to stay here this weekend.
Alright, so I was teaching one class and there was a lizard on the wall. It was crazy because when the girls saw the lizard, they all freaked out and started screaming. But wait it gets better; in the middle of my 'Travel' lesson, the lizard fell off the wall and onto the floor. One girl got up and basically started freaking out and crying out of fright. Class could not continue on with a lizard crawling around the classroom. What was most humorous about this situation was that the boys were a little apprehensive about getting the lizard too! So I had to get up the courage to get this distraction out of my classroom. One boy had a genius idea to get a dust pan and scoop the lizard up. He then threw the lizard off of the 3th floor of the building onto the pavement. I hope it lived! A lizard can come into my classroom anytime it wants. It is a most welcome distraction.
Went with some students to the "Government Building", which is supposedly the nicest and biggest building in Dongan and was built about 2 or 3 years ago.
Water fountain at the government building.

So Savii and I had the wonderful opportunity of going back to Hong Kong to renew our business visas so we could continue to work in Dongan. What a fabulous adventure this was indeed...We left on Friday after teaching classes to Yongzhou, to catch the 11 hour train ride to Hong Kong. We got a foot/back massage before we went and started our adventure:
Our whole body is on our foot!He better be careful with that knife!This group of people were so fun! Things we had in common were things like: NBA, like China, and talking about family.

Well needless to say, we did not catch the 11 hour train ride on Friday night to Hong Kong...because unfortunately Savanna forgot her passport! Which is very important if you want to get it stamped. So we ended up leaving on Saturday night at 12am for Hong Kong. Basically we passed the border into Hong Kong on Sunday morning at 11am, got lunch at a fun little restaurant (which was fabulous btw because people weren't staring at us and we could eat our meal without people watching everything we do), then turned around and headed back to the train station to catch our train at 5:00pm that evening to Yongzhou.
It was such a welcome sight to see a Starbucks Coffee in the train station terminal! What made it better was all of the foreigners gathered to this place too. Foreigners are so predictable. It's really funny because I have acquired the Chinese mentality that foreigners are beautiful and 'cool'. While I was on the train I saw two tall, in mid-20, foreigners with big back packs on walk out of the train station. I couldn't help but stare at them. Haha, it's funny what a few months in an all-Chinese city will do to your psyche.
oOOooo, big city! Shiny cars! Double Decker buses! lights! It was great to be in a clean city again, it was more familiar to me and comfortable and there weren't people spitting left and right. Even though we were only here for a couple hours, it was enjoyable to be in the busy atmosphere.
Micky D's! Savii and I enjoyed some french fries with Ronald McDonald to satisfy our American, western food, cravings. Hopefully it will tide us over until July!

Interesting fact: the language of Mainland China is Mandarin Chinese, while the language of Hong Kong is Cantonese Chinese. Also many of the people in Hong Kong know English, but they don't openly speak English with you.

Before we left for the train station we ran into this girl named Jen (pronounced, "djen") from France. She knows French, English, and is currently learning Chinese at a school in China. She has traveled all over the world and I am very envious of her! She had a very unique perception on life that was interesting to listen to. I also went to do a little shopping and boy are they BRutal! Where I went they have excellent shopping and have knock-off designer brands, but all of the workers manhandle you to come into their store saying things like, "beautiful girl, come and look at this"...or "come and look at that!" I eventually went into a store that had really cute designer clothes and this lady picked out about 20 things for me to buy and then set a price on them. I walked out, and then she came and grabbed me and pulled me back into the store! She kept saying, "because we friends I give you cheap price!" I was thinking, "a huh...". I finally had to just leave because She was charging me way to much so she then basically threw me out of the store while yelling and cursing at me in Chinese. That experience made me never want to go shopping there again...but my want for knock off prices might convince me otherwise...

We met up with the our group we were suppose to be going to Hong Kong with at the train station. It was so wonderful to see them! We did NOT miss the train coming back but I accidentally grabbed the wrong days ticket with another girl in the group who was going back the next day (she was going to Hong Kong Disney)....Sam got to sleep in the luggage area because there were not enough beds. It was a really fun train ride because we ran into some foreigners from Italy and Israel. The one guy from Italy has been working in Australia for the last 6 months and is traveling for the next 8. His name was Angelo. He only has a general outline of where he wants to go, but when he'll get there or how, is all up to fate. He was very inspiring to talk to, plus he added a few colorful words to liven up the conversation.
The train actually isn't that bad to sleep in. They have one room with 3 bunks going up each side, 6 bunks in total all. The train is really comfortable with the little sleep I got: we had to get off the train at 4 am.

I then had a 4-day week of teaching in Dongan.

I went on a bike ride through town, it was so enjoyable because the weather was nice and I had the whole afternoon to myself. I went and stopped on a bridge because a fishing boat on the river caught my attention. A man saw me looking at the fishing boat and gestured if I would like to go for a ride. He took my bike to his home, parked it and he gave me a ride down the river! It was so beautiful! The water was actually semi-clean where I was at. Bike rides are the spice of life and are a definite necessity.
Sam came and visited us from Shungpai. He was a huge hit with the guys. Many people think we are dating. You know that scene from Toy Story when Buzz and Woody are kidnapped by a next door neighbor, ... and there is no place of safety and Woody says, "We're always watching you, Sid…” That's how I feel a lot of the time. That there is no place of safety.
We took Sam to our local park and ran into these little boys. The boy by Sam that looks like he is crying is actually smiling really big for the camera. Haha, makes me giggle to look at this picture.

This past weekend we had a three day holiday for "May Holiday". May 1 is their Labor holiday. Savii and I went to MerryLand and Shuanghuangshong Mountain.
Savii's birthday was on this past Sunday so I had to make sure the cake was fully decorated and ready for Sunday.

To start, we left Thursday night by train to go to Merryland the next day. On the train I met this guy who just barely turned 21 and is a Nomad from Tibet. He is learning English, knows Chinese and Tibetan. I can see a definite difference between the skin color of Chinese and Tibetans...He taught Savii and I some Tibetan. It is very difficult! I hope to go to Tibet someday....but with how things are looking between China and Tibet...I don't think that can happen.
We had a midnight snack before going to bed and these are the things you can pick from... bird, bug, pig's man-parts......oh so appetizing. I stuck with the eggplant.
This guy wrote the anthem of China....
Merryland! and look at the cute, freaky-eyed characters I'm with! Merryland is a nice Chinese-style Lagoon.
Pirate town.
We watched a live Western while in Merryland. They had a Kung Fu master who rued the day.
These guys are from Yongzhou University and wanted a picture with me in the LOVE heart.
Shopping in Xiang Merryland.
Pushing a statue in the water.... shhhh-don't tell.
We went to Dongan after Merryland and then took off the following morning to climb Shuanhuangshong mountain. It is very close to Dongan. This is a picture of Savii, Lucy and I in the back of a taxi/motorbike/back-in-the-day truck. We rode this to go up to the mountain.
It is so green! There is moss everywhere.
A random dude wanting a picture with us. If you look closely at my forehead you'll see a giant goose egg. My head decides to swell up when I get bitten by a mosquito. Lucy said to me, "You can't go anywhere without having your picture taken! Even the bugs like you!"

Lucy!
Alex!
Savanna!
1 minute Kung Fu lesson. Alex loved his girlfriend, I loved him....
This place is where we get the water from that I drink in my apartment! It is wonderful! and the air is so clean! I couldn't get enough of it. I also couldn't get enough of that man who's holding the water bottle in the lower left hand corner.
MMm, clean water.
They had butterflies at the mountain! Alex tormented this butterfly. He flashing it with his camera trying to get it to open it's wings.
The strongest Chinese man I've seen thus far on my trip. His muscles are large, mine are small! Alex loved taking pictures with and of him. You don't see men, or women for that matter, wearing muscle shirts and have beautiful muscles underneath!
Doing yoga at the top of the mountain, soaking up the clean atmosphere.
Alex bought some sunglasses while we were in Merryland. He felt really cool wearing them. It's funny, whenever I wear my sunglasses at school many people say, "Wow, Danielle! So cool!". I have to be careful about wearing my sunglasses so as not to appear cocky. Chinese people, where I'm at, do not wear sunglasses so Alex and Lucy feel really cool wearing them.
Back to Dongan. People are obssessed about having clean shoes and a few people have commented on my shoes being dirty. Alex asked me why I don't clean my shoes. I told him that in America we don't like our shoes looking extremely new because we like the worn look. He refused to believe me. I decided to pay 1 yuan to have them cleaned. Totally worth it.

Well I realized this week that I only have about 4 more weeks until I am done teaching! I have a two week vacation the beginning of June, hopefully I'll go to Beijing, but we'll see what happens. But I am on the down curve of teaching. It amazes me that it has gone by so quickly! I will be so glad to have teaching over with, but will be so incredibly heart broken to leave the students and friends I have made. I don't want to think about it because I still have a lot to do while I'm here.

I have also realized that Chinese students are incredibly educated about everything. They know English, know the history of all the countries in the world, and study 10 plus hours a day! One kid in my class asked me about Obama's speech he gave a couple days ago and said many people were crying. He wanted to know why. Alas! I did not watch that speech when a kid in an intensive high school class did! I really wish I was educated in this way while in school...but then again I'm in China and many of them will never be able to travel abroad until they are very old.

Thanks for checking up on my life. I'm not sure when I'll post next. I always seem to run into something interesting.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2009-04-23T00:26:00.033-06:00

Life continues to keep busy and new things are always thrown my way! The things thrown are always good and I enjoy seeing what presents itself! This past weekend I went to ZhangJiaJie for a few days because my students had exams (which means I did not have to teach while they suffered). I went with a tour group, which was very interesting because everyone on the tour spoke minimal English. But that is okay, I still was able to get along with many of them. Plus they took care of Savanna and I. It was interesting because at meals, Savii and I were guests on their vacation!

To start off the trip we went to a Buddhist temple. It was a very beautiful building. I just feel like I am missing out on so much because I could not ever understand what the tour guide was saying. That is probably how my students feel when I talk to quickly in my classes.
A monk handed me this slip of paper. I'm guessing it is a fortune, but I cannot be sure. I had my classes help me translate the meaning into English. Much is lost when you translate from Chinese to English. Essentially if you translate character for character it says: people, people, home, family, poor, fourth, fire. Which basically translates into: your family was poor but it now very rich. I think that is true.
Funny translation: Please not randomly throws trash. I showed a Chinese teacher my pictures and he asked why it was funny. Savii and I tried to explain to him that you don't randomly throw trash, but it should have been something like, "don't litter". He just didn't understand why we found it so humorous. It 's funny how things like this can only be funny to someone in their native language.
ZhangJiaJie is a National Park! Totally stoked about that. I feel like I have had to dumb down my English since coming to China. Forgive me if I talk really basic.
It rained the entire freaking time. I have never been more grateful for the invention of an umbrella than during the three days I spent in ZhangJiaJie. Thank you Stephanie for the umbrella! I had to wear these delightful ponchos most of the weekend. I even had cute little booties to wear over my canvas shoes.
We finally got to the park and it was beautiful! I loved the clean air. I couldn't get enough of it.
So strong. In China, to be strong means to be masculine and to withstand the elements or it can also mean that you are fat. Our friend Alex calls Savanna strong because she can eat a lot of rice. It's our little inside joke. Savanna doesn't care for it, but she's a good sport.
The spires are amazing here. It reminded me a lot of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, but ZhongJiaJie is very green and has many trees. The rocks look a lot like fingers reaching up through the earth.
Can you see anything? Neither can I. We got to the top of the mountain but could not see anything because of all of the fog. Which was a shame because I paid a mere 100 yuan to see it.
Monkeys! They had monkeys all over the park. They are really cute and have pink bums. I saw one monkey eating junk food which made me sad that humans are interrupting their natural lifestyle and westernizing them.
By standing in the heart with a loved one, you seal your love. Too bad I only have me! Maybe someday there will be another.
This was the most random thing ever. It kinda makes me think of the scene in Emperor's New Groove, "Uh, what's up with the Chimp and the bug?....can we get back to...me?!". Anyways, in the middle of our tour they took us to a knife and peeler advertisement. It was funny to watch all of the men get excited to use a knife to cut vegetables. People actually cook here in China and need to use a knife. Not as many people eat out it seems like. Although since coming here I eat out all of the time, haha. They also had an electric razor that they soaked in water for half an hour and it kept working after they were done! It could even shave metal off of a metal rod! I totally need one to shave my legs.
Beautiful blossoms! The pink is so vibrant. I've deduced that this is my favorite color.
Breathtaking! I think the fog makes it angelic and surreal.
A peacock was sitting on a high branch on top of the mountain. I didn't even know they lived in China!
I loved this woman! She was in our tour group. We had a connection even though we couldn't speak. It's really cool how you can just feel emtionally what people's character is like even though you can't understand them.
Really far down. We had to cross over a big bridge. I'm glad I'm not afraid of depths/heights!
Savanna climbed through the bars of the bridge! She almost gave a Chinese man a heart attack. She is one crazy girl. If I got a quarter for everytime she said how much she wanted to rock climb and to do something adventurous I would be a wealthy woman and could retire now.
Locks to ceil friendship, love, and to give one luck.

The beautiful surroundings of ZhangJiaJie while leaving the group behind.
Leaving 张家戒, Jiangjiajie.
On the way back home we stopped by an ancient palace place. I really wish I could say more about it, but I only can talk about what I observed.
A red bed is where the bride and groom sleep the first night they are married.
A place of worship in their home.
The friends I made along the way!
Chinese people can sure make a mess! Seriously, this is after being in the bus for only 6 hours. I've never seen so few people make such a mess! The ground is their garbage can. The bus ride was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO times infinite long. We started at 6:30 pm riding home and I didn't get home until 4:30am on Monday morning! It totally sucked getting up at 6:30am for classes and teaching for 4 hours, but you deal with what live gives!

It was a very fun vacation and teaching has been going well this week. It has been my first full week of teaching after 3 weeks of having shortened weeks so it's been a little tiring.

I went dancing this past week! It was really fun. I danced with a bunch of old guys! which wasn't as fun, but still it was nice to dance with a guy who knew how to and wasn't afraid to lead. It was really funny because one time when I was with an old man, another guy stood right next to me to see if he was taller (right while I was dancing!). People circled around Savanna and I as we learned how to dance. I realize that I have horrible posture, my mama (lady I met a month or two ago) kept pressing on my back to tell me to straighten up!
My friends here in Dong'an. The guy on the far left is a very hard worker and I took a picture of him at the beginning when he was using his wheel barrow. He told me that he is very proud to have had a foreigner take a picture of him!

Well, it is time to go have a Chinese/English lesson with one of my students.

Zaijian!

小反 (xiao fan. My Chinese name.)

Trains, Rollercoasters, Boats and Automobiles

2009-04-08T06:09:00.076-06:00

Just as a warning, I have a ton to tell you about, so beware. Feel free to read the stories or just look at the pretty pictures, there's a lot. I took around 500 pictures in a 4 day period!

So lets get to work.

I had my birthday in China! It was awesome. My classes sang happy birthday to me and some of the girls from my classes gave me 21 origami hearts and cranes. Their skills amaze me! I then took a nap and went and had dinner with friends and watched a movie with Savanna. Then I packed to get ready to leave at 7:00am for Guilin. It was a really good birthday and I'm happy I'm 21. What could be better? I also got text messages from Savanna's students (they got ahold of her phone and took my number from it...).

I had a three day holiday and had the opportunity to go to Guilin for the break. It's truly amazing. I am excited to share with you what I saw.

Day 1-Train rides, temples, cave, and river ride
I totally got to ride on a train! It was way fun because I listened to music while Savii taught Alex how to say "vowel" (he had a hard time with the 'w') and then we all played cards, including the man right accross with me with whom I'd never met before. We played Chinese poker, which includes no gambling, which is surprising bc Chinese people love to gamble (it's what the old people do all the time around here). I'm wearing Alex's glasses right now. I think they're pretty hot if you ask me.
We went to a Toaist temple and saw many beautiful things.
Some really old person's grave stone.
I climbed to the top of this mountain, there's a Taoist temple at the top.
Donations.
These ribbons are used as a form of protection.
I doubt they even recycle, but it's a nice thought. All of their trash just kinda goes on the ground....
Beautiful view from the top of the mountain. Alex is way flexible, he reminds me of "The Amazing" Yen from Ocean's 11. It was really rainy when we got there so that's why it's so gray and gloomy in my pictures
Touch it brings you good luck.
We went to this jewelry shop after the temple. 880 Yuan! Way expensive for a little ox.
I love the woman and little girl to your right (my left). We met them on the train and they said they were going to Guilin and so we joined our plans with theirs. Chinese people are amazing like that: they look after one another in a way individualistic Americans could or would never do. We might talk with someone on a train, but we wouldn't become best friends with them and spend our entire holiday weekend with them. Their mentality is kind of like: your business is everyones business
Flowers along the way.
We went in a cave. The family we joined up with watched out for us. It's amazing how I wanted to say things to them so badly but could not because of my retarded Chinese abilities. Savanna and I touched a stalactite. This would never be allowed in America, I think the National Park Services would arrest us and send us to the stalks if they saw what we did. But this picture shows the damage it does to touch stalactites/mites in a cave!
I got to hold a tortoise! This tortoise doesn't actually live in the cave, but is used more for as a picture/money making tool.

It was so funny to go to the cave because people still wanted pictures with us (Savii and I). We were hoping to escape the publicity we get in Dong'an but it was worse in Guilin, which is interesting because Guilin is a bigger more well known city. We saw a few foreigners while we were there which was cool to know that they still exist, not that I really care to go back to Americans, I perfer the Chinese as the moment. (America rocks though, don't get me wrong).
An archway in the cave, women go through the center, men go on the left. The cave was one of those times where it would have been really nice to know Chinese. We had a Chinese guide but no way to understand what she was understanding. Alex didn't even come with us in the cave because he's already been...so we didn't even have a Chinese translator. One girl, who knows some English was able to help us out and tell us that we were in a Toaist temple ground or something.
River ride! Guilin is spectacular. I never thought that places like this actually existed.
Funny translations. It's such a relief to have English on signs!
Does this look like an elephant? Because it should. This is called elephant mountain.
River food. Fried fish and shrimp.
A lady trying to sell little dolls. It was my first bargaining experience. Ok, more like watching Alex bargain for it so I can do it later.
The night market! This is when learned more of the art of bargaining: you hear what they want for an item, then you cut the price less than half and go up from there bartering back and forth. Sometimes if you don't like what they are offering, you walk away and the seller will lower the price, that's when you go back and then finally pay for your item. I feel so bad bartering with them because I feel like I have been given so much in my life and I'm trying to get the price down by only a few yuan, which converts over to only a few cents. Oh well, it's fun nonetheless, plus I was able to get some beautiful necklaces, bracelets, and a scarf!
Alex showing Savii the ropes of bargaining. This man first charged 120 yuan for it and they were able to reduce the price down to 30 yuan! Which is way good. The street vendors totally love to rip off foreigners so it's nice to have Alex around to help us to get the right price.

Oh I almost forgot. I almost got pick pocketed while I was watching Savii and Alex bargain for their Chinese flutes. I was just standing enjoying them argue with this man about the price, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a hand that wasn't mine... I looked down and the hand was reaching for my pocket to take my camera...I turned because I was startled and a man was crouched down trying to steal my things. It gave me a sick feeling that really even though I may be viewed as foreign and beautiful, but also appear as just that a foreigner which equals Rich. The guy just got up and walked off after that. I saw him walk by me a couple times after that. I kept my bag and my things really close to me after this.
Savii and I got our faces painted on a shirt. My artist was really good looking and looked like he should own a motorcycle. They had posters of Obama, Harry Potter, Michael Jackson, etc that they could draw.
Savii got a shirt and a picture that a man drew of her for free! I think he did a good job. Savii has such a beautiful youthful face.
The finished product! Too bad it's to small for me...oh well, it'll make a good belly shirt.

Day 2- Yongsheng and Li River
I love this little girl. She is the daughter of the Chinese family we hung out with. Her name in Chinese means 'Sugar' in English.

This is the beginning of our tour down the Li River.
River girl. We got flower head dresses.
Sugar. Seriously, I want to take this girl home with me. She's 6 years old.
Making a pose.
Making fishy faces. I taught Alex how to do this on the train. he thought it was pretty sweet. Behind us you can see a ginormous tree.
Yeah, a freaking huge tree, and Yes it's only one tree. I told you so.
Li river ride. The sun decided to poke through for a couple minutes.
A river man. The bird on his stick can fish! It will swim in the water to get the fish. We went on another river ride through the main part of Guilin. Fantastic.
The birds are heavier than they look. The birds have the ability to fish for food!
Cute monkeys! Makes me sad they are chained down for picture taking.

Day 3-waterfalls and farwells to Guilin
It was nice to be in the city of Guilin because it was so much more clean than Dong'an. I loved the city atmosphere, but did find myself missing the Dongan country feeling by the end of the trip.
This lady is selling shrimp.
Alex got sick and so he took my scarf to keep himself warm. He would say, "my nose is burning." He's not the best gentleman...but because he's nice and funny I'll forgive him. We are all riding in a tram-like thing to go to a Buddhist temple. It was interesting going to the temple and bowing to Buddah. It was also amazing to realize that myself, along with Savii, might have been the only Christians in the room.
Another cave! This cave had it all: roller coaster-like-thing, boat ride, and elevators. Who needs the "Pirates of the Carribean" ride in Disneyland when you have this place? I kept singing, "yo-ho yo-ho a pirates life for me" in my head while going through the cave.
Another river ride through the beautiful mountains.
A lady trying to sell peanuts and oranges. She wouldn't let me take her picture, but felt fine trying to sell me things.
Sugar melts my heart everytime.
This neat bridge sat right on top of a waterfall. The sun came out this day! It made me so happy.
River song that people shout back and forth to each other while going down the river.
Savii and I got to go rock climbing up a mountain! We got to wear these cool shoes going up. They work really well to climb rocks.
We also got to wear these attractive ponchos to keep us dry. If you notice, Savii and I aren't looking at my camera but at a guy right next to us who was taking our picture. Alex would say to us, "why are you so popular? You need to start charging 10 yuan for people who want your picture." I kind of want to take his advice, but until then I'll just be a free face on a photograph.
These people all wanted pictures with us. So I finally had to get one with them. You can't see in the picture, but the guy to Savii's right is holding her hand. He kept following her around. He was really cute too. People think Savii and I are sisters. It's probably because we have the same colored hair, are around the same height, and are both awesome.
A really freaky bug (millipede or centipede, I'm not sure of the difference) that was about a the thickness of my pinky and as long as my palm.
Sugar sharing here kaleidoscope with another girl. I am astonished at how sharing the people are here, even the kids are more helpful to each other.
Workers carry these loads like it's cake. I couldn't even get the wood off the ground.
Zip line! I got to go down a zipline and over the beautiful forest. It only lasted a few seconds, but was totally worth the 20 yuan.
Our really cute tour guide. He's too young though: 18. Blast, why do they always have to be so young?....lame!
This guy made these Jade pieces of stoneware that are really beautiful.
Fishy face! Sugar was able to do it by the end. We are in the train station and arrived only minutes before the train took off (which is a shame because we could have gone to the amusement park Merryland if we missed the train and post poned classes). Oh well.

Overall this was a very successful vacation. I was way worn out for classes the next day because I got home at around 10 pm the night before. I learned a lot about the Chinese people by being with Alex and with a Chinese family the 3 days. It amazes me how they really look after one another. One time when I was with Savii buying ice cream, we paid for ourselves, and afterwards Alex said, "Danielle, why did you not pay for Savanna when she is your May-May (younger sister)?" We had to explain to him that in America we like to pay for ourselves to keep the money even and fair. He could not accept that way of living and was really offended by me paying for just myself. The Chinese think as a group and want everyone to make sure everyone is cared for. Another example of this is at English Corner this past week (Savii and I teach English corner once a week to the English nerds. It's like an English club). This past week we tried to teach them the game 'telephone' where you all stand in a line and pass the message from one person to another and the person at the end has a really weird sentence. They couldn't do it! They had to help each other out.

Well, thanks for checking up on me. As of now I am trying to learn how to be a better teacher and how to get my students to really learn English. Learning a language is difficult, especially English. Even I don't know all of the mechanics of the English language. I also have a new found respect for teachers. I find it amazing that teachers can teach day after day, year after year. Right now I feel that the teaching profession is not for me, but am grateful for the experience to learn and practice with such amazing kids, who have little, but know and give so much.

Well until next time Zaijian! Bye-Bye.

Midnight Snacks

2009-03-31T02:22:00.024-06:00

Hey ya'll. Yes, I used ya'll. I figure its really easy to use and it works perfectly in this context. So get over it.

It's been a fun in Dong'anville this past week. It's always an adventure no matter if I stay home or leave town. I am looking forward to this weekend because we have a three day holiday for what's called Spring Festival. It is a time when families get together to respect their ancestors. I get to go to Guilin which is about two hours east/south of here and has beautiful scenery. I am very excited! Especially because our Chinese friend, Alex, is going to accompany us. It will be nice to have a Chinese brother with us who knows the language and can communicate/translate for and with others around us.

But lets talk about this past weeks' on-goings......
This past week we ran into MAMA. Haha, this lady is crazy (she's in-between Savii and I). We met her at a restaurant and she totally loved us the moment she saw us. She mimed all of the actions to see if we liked dancing, eating, etc. It was very entertaining. We've ran into her a couple times on the streets since then and she gives us a great big hug everytime. She took us to her home so we could meet her family (ok so not the smartest idea to go with a stranger, of whom you cannot even speak the same language. But she's totally cool so I felt ok going with her). Like all of her family was there and wanted to meet us. Later she invited us to come back another day so we could get facials (hence why my hair is crazy in the above picture). Oh how I love China. She asked us to come to her home for dinner tonight, but unfortunately we are having a Chinese lesson.
Mama's family and friends. She told us to call her, "Mama", so that is what I call her. Again, it is truly amazing what a phrasebook, a dictionary, and great acting can tell you about a person.
Everyone couple days or so Savii and I will find a flower or bouquet of wild flowers and grasses put on our doorknob going into our apartment. Savii and I have our suspicions that it is either the neighborhood girls or one of the boys from downstairs....we'll see if he or she ever reveals himself.
My most favorite noodle shop that I go to a couple times a week for $.45. The noodles they make are homemade and fantastically fresh. They also sell dumplings but have not tried them yet because the noodles are so appetizing.
I love this guy and his noodles.
Ginger is one of the sides you can put in your noodles. My liaison told us that it is good for your health. An old lady walked in the background right as I took the picture. She picks up and cleans the tables when customers leave.
Noodles. aughll (imagine Homer Simpson drooling right now). Haha, so in my classes this week we've been watching clips of Kung Fu Panda: someday I hope to have the noodle dream.
The streets on the way back to school from the noodle shop. People have Chinese lanterns up all the time.

Ok, so Savii and I were going to go to Merryland this past weekend, but plans fell through because Chinese people hate bad weather like a fat American kid hates vegetables. So we called our friends, Alex and Lucy, and asked them what fun things there are to do around Dong'an. They decided to take us along for what is called a, "Midnight snack". Midnight snacks are what people have around 9 at night. We went along with them getting, "hello's from students along the way." Lucy was afraid Mr. Beard (our liasion) would find out we were gone and would get in trouble. Midnight snacks include an electric cooking stove and several freshly fried meats, insects, tofu, and vegetables....basically not your typical American Ben & Jerry's midnight snack. Savii is eating a goose leg at the moment. Times like these I'm glad I'm vegetarian.Veggies stir-frys: Delicious. :)
Me trying a snail....not sure how ethically I feel about it, but now I can say I have tried snail. "It tastes like a balloon"---It Takes Two. Chopsticks aren't used for this one!Chinese Coca-Cola! It tastes way fizzy here. I can't really compare the differences between USA and Chinese Cola because I didn't have it much when I was back in the States. I would have just got water but they kept pressuring me to drink...like really pressuring me. They said, "Danielle, why you not drink? Savanna is to young to drink, but you are of age. I have seen many Americans drink. Why you not drink?" At that moment I wanted to talk about my religion with them....but casually said that I don't like the feels of intoxication. "But just a little bit!" They would say. Sometimes I feel like an odd-duck, but who doesn't feel odd once in awhile? It builds character.
Midnight snacks, righteous.
A most excellent smoothie that I had in Yong'zhou this past Sunday. After church we just go and get food on the street from various vendors selling noodles, fried rice, veggies, and fried breads. The locals think we're strange because they eat food according to season...smoothies are to?/too? (I always get them confused) cold. They had fun little jelly things in them that I rather enjoyed.
On the bus ride home, there was this live chicken on the ground with it's legs tied up. I felt great pity for it. It would suck to have cigarette butts thrown in your face, have your legs tied up, and know your ultimate fate is.....Sunday dinner.
Piano lessons! This kid Arthur, my student, lives a couple floors below us and has an electric keyboard! We were stoked to be able to finally use a piano. His father plays the piano but Arthur has never learned. I taught him the lower part of, "heart and soul" so we could do a duet together. It's amazing that a kid so intellectually smart can be so horrible at picking up a tune. Haha, but it was really fun teaching him and seeing him get excited to play.
'Heart and Soul' baby! What was really awesome was talking with him about student life and the opportunity he had to go to England. I asked him what he first thought when he arrived in England, "the air is very clean". I couldn't agree with him more.
Tony! This kid is awesome. I met him the first day I had classes and he has been my friend ever since. He is in grade 3 (I teach grade 2). We run into each other once in awhile. I was happy to see him this past Sunday because it's been a couple weeks since I had seen him last. When I said, "hello Tony!" he excitedly replied, "oh you remember my name?!" Haha, such a cute kid.

Savii and I played Badminton with her students. We were going for a walk when they just pulled us over to play and handed us the racket.
Savii's cute students.
These girls were watching us play badminton. I couldn't resist going over and saying hello. I love the girl on the rights' crooked teeth.

An overall good week. I'm praying for sunshine this weekend while we're traveling around. Hope all is well where ever you are reading from.

Peace out,

Danielle

The Hills are Alive

2009-03-26T06:31:00.045-06:00

Another week has come and passed me by. It is amazing how quickly the time goes here. It seems like the week begins slowly and all of the sudden it's time to play and prepare another lesson. As usual there is much to report on about this past weeks happenings.
Savii and I went on a walk around town and found this sweet lizard/salamander on a bridge. Notice all of the garbage on the ground above the salamander. Diss-gust-ing.

When I went on a bike ride the other day, I found a cute little park that always has people dancing. Savii and I came at the perfect time. We sat down at a bench and some people brought speakers and started playing music...people gathered around and had an organized dance lesson. I wonder if it is possible to incorporate this at Utah's parks. At first there was one set of speakers and dancers, but then on the opposite side of the square another group of people brought speakers and started jamming out. It was hard to separate the rhythm between the two groups. Crazy!
Singers advertising for their store.
This past weekend the other foreign teachers and I went to Shung Pai and went on a beautiful hike. It took us several hours, but it was sure worth the view at the top!
Views of Shuanpai and the surrounding mountainous areas.
We passed through this quaint little homestead on our way up. It amazes me that people live here and seem extremely happy about it.

I found out about Chinese marriages while hiking the mountain with the foreign teachers. You can tell if someone is married here if a couple is working together. Here, husband and wife will do the same work. Women will do what their husband does. So if the man is a construction worker, the wife will too. If the man is a street sweeper..the wife will be too. Women get paid the same as men here.
We saw these kids on our way up the mountain. It's amazing, these kids ran up and down these hills with out a drip of sweat and I was dying and had to take several breathers along the trail! It just goes to show how much more physically-inclined the Chinese lifestyle is than the American lifestyle!
We made it to the top and there were a bunch of school kids up there ready to say hello to all of the Americans. They had a run-down tower at the top, which made for really good pictures.
A picture overlooking Shung pai. (pardon for all the different spellings of Shung pai, I'm not sure how it is spelled.)
Beautiful view. Gotta love the smog (I like to psych myself out and say "purified mist", but when I feel like I need to shower all the time, it's hard to convince myself of that). I loved seeing all of the rice fields and the hazy and far-away look the mountains have.
Megan and me overlooking the valley.
This is tower that was at the top of the mountain.
Hiking down the mountain.
The gardens are lovely here. They have them all marked off and dived into nice little sections.
Apartment building.
A man herding goats on his motorcycle.
This bridge ended our hike. We then went and got some dinner and watched, "Remember the Titans!" I absolutely love that movie. It never gets old.
For breakfast Sunday morning, we had French Toast! The gas stove we used is only equiped to cook one slice of bread at a time so it took awhile to cook enough for 11 people. It was nice to have an American meal. We had our french toast with chopsticks. I have found that I really love Chinese food and do not miss American food all that much. What I do miss is cold fresh fruit like grapes and being able to bite into a crisp apple with out having to peel and boil it before I eat it.
French toast, hash browns, eggs, fruit, watermelon, and syrup! The joys of American food. Simply scrumptious!
Bus ride home. A freaking ton of people on the bus. They had a bench in the middle of the aisle for more people to sit.
I get pineapple from these people all the time. There are about 4 stands outside of the school that sell pineapple for about 12 cents. It's really funny lately because the lladies at the stands have been competing for mine and Savii's loyalties. They have been giving us extra pineapple and suckers to brib us to go to their stand. It humors me.
Kids who sell pineapple.
This girl has been teaching us Chinese and we have been teaching her English. It's funny because she knows a little English, but not enough to have a conversation. She taught us things like dog, book, cat, ping pong. She taught us that the American peace or number 2 sign is the Chinese way of saying, "Yes". So when Chinese hold up their fingers in a peace sign, they are saying, "Yes" instead of peace. I found that fascinating.
Henry, the spider outside of Savanna's window that totally freaks us out.
Savanna and I decided to go and play some ping pong. It was AMazing! All of the ping pong nerds were there who are totally intense and were able to show us the ropes of ping pong. It was SO much fun. The language barrier cracks me up because you have to mime what you are saying and just hope that the other person is understanding what you are saying. It is amazing how much can be comunicated through one's eyes. Eyes really are the window to the soul. You can be total friends with out having to say a single word of the others language. Smiles are also another amazing tool of communication and can tell a lot about how you are feeling.
The kids would stand around and watch and lined up to play with the Americans. The kids are so freaking cute. I love them so much. It's a good thing I have a few inches in height to make me a little taller and to give myself a little more authority or else I would practically feel like a student.

Yesterday, I went and played ping pong with some students from one of my classes and there was one girl who had really good English skills. We were able to talk about more things than the usual, "Do you like China?" "Do you like Chinese food?", etc, etc. She asked me what I thought about racial discrimination. It is refreshing to have an intelligent conversation with my Chinese sister!
I went for another bike ride yesterday and loved this building. It has the run down housing on the left, newer developments in the back, and a lady working on her garden on the left that encircles what china is all about: has the old, but mixed in with a little of the new.
A beautiful bridge that I saw on my bike ride. Train tracks run over the bridge.
A garbage truck. They dump the garbage into the back of the truck and then burn it. What's great is that they burn all the plastic and it sets all of these lovely fumes into the air.

Overall I just absolutely love China. The people are so amazing here. They just seem content with life. They have pressures and worries but don't seem like they are stressed. They take their time (which is admirable but really sucks when you are walking behind a short, slow, Chinese lady and you need to go to class).

No Rain on My Parade

2009-03-18T22:59:00.023-06:00

See the red arrow? That's where I'm at right....NOW! Dong'an is the town I hale from and can't be seen on most maps. It's right to the north of a main city Yongzhou. Hope this is helpful for people to see where I'm at! :)

Well it has been a lovely week! Nice weather here and it's been a little sticky and humid. Can't wait for summer! That will be interesting indeed.

I played Badminton with a couple of the neighbor kids. They were shy at first to play with us but then they got really intense. The boy next to me was really intense with Badminton. I don't think he knows how to smile.

Savanna playing with the kids. The sun was hurting her eyes.

Weird statue that they have on the school grounds. It has a lizard climbing up its chest.

I love this little girl and want to keep her and call her mine. She pressed her face into the Badminton net to pose for the picture. I taught her, "high-five". When ever I see her we high-five each other.

On the bus to Shaunpai they had two baskets
filled with live fish swimming in water. I think many died by the end of the little bus ride.

Albert Einstein! They have statues of famous scholars along the entrance of the school. They have Confucius and what looks like the prophet Moses.

A parade...celebrating what, I'm not sure.

I went to lunch with one of my students and she then showed us where she lives. It was very humbling . They have 14 girls in one room! No heating or air system! I do not know how they live like that! There beds are not very soft either. Some used newspaper as padding underneath a bamboo sheet. Those colored buckets that they have going down the center of the room is used for washing their clothes: by hand! They always look so nice and well groomed, most of the time they look nicer than I do and I have a washing machine!!! What is amazing to me is that they still seem happy and content with life. I could not do that. It would be extreme girls camp all the time.

They start school at 8:30 and then study all the way til 9:30pm. It blows my mind. Several of the students have said that they feel lots of pressure to go to a university and that it is their parents dream that they go to a good university.

Guess who has a bike?! I do! I found out I had two days off this week because my students were taking exams. To celebrate, I decided to purchase a bike. I was went up to some of my students and asked, "how do you say, "I want to purchase bicycle" in Chinese?" They taught me and then decided to come along and take me to the sweet bike shops. It's a really good bike for Chinese standards. Usually their bikes are one-gear shifter bike and really used. Mine is a little on the small side, but it was the biggest that they had and was only 50 bucks. WOO!

I took advantage of the lovely weather and went for a bike ride on my couple days off. First I started going on a main road but decided against it because it was so busy. I decided to take some back roads and below are some of the things I saw.

Rice fields up-close! Most of the time I see the rice fields while riding on a bumpy bus and can't get good pictures. What's amazing is that this is a couple minute ride from my school.

Lovely trash along the side of the road. A sign that I'm guessing means, "children at play."

I love water. They offer boat rides during the summer. I am tempted to go on one just to do it, but it would be a one time thing because the water is nasty and filled with trash.

Yummy food that is only like 60 cents for the entire meal and can be made in a couple minutes.
This is a picture in the supermarket. If you see there are around 6 birds laying right there. They look like they got ran over and then put in a dehydrator to have the life sucked right out of them. Look at the birds neck on top how its curling up and to the right. Yum.

They have really cute bakery breads all the time. Bread here is always sweet. They don't have the good hearty, whole-wheat bread here.

Well I'm going to go to the park and read a book now! Have fun. Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Sock Dolls, Tai Chi and Stupid Buses

2009-03-12T02:18:00.035-06:00

Much has happened since the last post. I really need to update more because then it just gets overwhelming to try and put everything on that has happened! What I am discovering about China is that the people are so incredibly kind and genuine. I am continually amazed by their hospitality and willingness to help.
This is the supermarket I shop at called, "Better Life". Savanna and I were going there like every other day for awhile because they have English movies like the Hulk, Iron Man, and The Illusionist there. We went with a teacher from the school once and she said, "the workers tell me you come here often; how to you buy so much food and stay so slender?" I'm glad she said that and not, "You come here so often, maybe you should cut down a little." They have really cheap food there. China has cheap everything, not gonna lie.
Our neighbor friends. When they see me they say, "Dan yi, Hullo!!" and then I say, "Hello," back. That is the extent of our conversation because we don't know anymore. Savii (Savanna) and I played tag with them once and it was so funny trying to mime how to play tag. We got tons of the neighbor kids to join. We played red light and green light too. They tried to show us how to play some type of Chinese Mother-May-I, but it didn't work to well because we could not understand at all what they were trying to tell us.
The kids have these skateboard things that they go down a hill by the apartment on. The kids here are definitely a ton more active than in the states and are really creative with what they have. One time they were sitting on the skateb0ards and going down the hill around a sharp turn. I thought they were going to die and biff it; I couldn't watch because it made me to nervous.
Savii and I made food! We even figured out how to work the gas stove and rice cooker. The dish was delicious and I call it, "Dan yi special". All you need is carrots, cabbage, onion, a little soy sauce, salt and your good to go! We also had some cut up pineapple with our Dan yi Supreme. The rice, I might add, was amazing, and get this--not only was the cooker was in chinese but I have never used a rice cooker successfully before.
Sheow Li and Sheow Fan sock dolls! Savii is Sheow Li and I'm Sheow Fan. It's been way cold here so we decided to fill socks with rice so we can heat them up in the microwave and then use them to warm our toes. Then we proceeded to take out permanent markets and Chineseify and personalise our socks.

Savii found a piano shop when she was out with Jacob (he is over the China Horizons program) and so we decided to come back another time and play it. Savii can play like a bazillion different instruments its crazy and she was really craving a piano so we had to go back to the piano shop so she could show me here amazing skills (actually I wanted to hear her amazing skills is more like it. The guy in the video above owns this piano shop and he is amazing at the piano. He played a few songs for us. The first time he was playing happily with a cigarette in his mouth. I think he told his student to leave because we were there (Can't tell, because well...this was all in Chinese).
Savii and I played, "Heart and Soul" for him. The guy recorded Savii playing, "Praise to the Man" on the piano...We figure we're doing subtle missionary work while we're here. We're hoping he'll hear that song someday from a missionary or something and think, "Oh I've heard that song before, baptize me right now!" When Jacob was with us, the man told him that the music Savii played gave him a good feeling.

Seriously, they have the freakiest mannequins here.
My window is the one at the far end of the building, on the fourth floor, we have a balcony that overlooks rice fields. I swear I should live on the 3rd floor because that's about the time I start getting out of breath.
I was out on the town one afternoon and there was a little fair-type thing going on. Notice all of the glasses on the ground: there are fishes in them! Kids would toss rings over the glasses so they can win it and take it home. If the kids got more than a couple fish then they could trade the fish for another animal like a rabbit, turtle or bird.

Ok so this was really scary. Just a little info: there are 11 teachers that came from The States and are around Youngjoe County. We get together every weekend to hangout and have church together. One night we got to sleep late because we were talking and when we finally got to sleep I was awoken by Megan, a girl in the group, screaming and whispering saying she heard something come out of the heater and that she's really freaked out. I had ear plugs in when the thing came out so I didn't believe her, but then something did come out of the heater and it was flying around circling around our heads: It was a BAT!!! We all got up and Amy, another girl in the group, got a blanket and caught it. She thought it was really cute, while the rest of us just wanted it out of there so we could go back to sleep.
Badmitton! When I was at the other foreign teachers school one of the kids at their school kid asked me to play Badmitton with them. I love Badmitton! I now have a racket and a few birdies (not literally, you know just the fake plastic thingys) to play with anytime of day or night that I got from the PE coach. I also have a ping-pong paddle so I can improve my ping pong skills. I now know how to properly serve and hold the paddle (I've been doing it wrong my whole life).
The group at Youngjoe No. 2 Middle School. Kids were running into the picture so they could be with us. We were trying not to fall over from all of them running to be in the pic with us. After this we all went and got facials and got our hair styled. The guy who styled my hair was amazing; I've never seen anyone use the blow-dryer like he did. I felt SO clean afterward; like I had just gotten a shower and all cleaned off in the States.
Time came for us to depart, which is always sad because I have to leave my friends and stressful because I have to ride buses to get back to school. I absolutely hate the bus system here to get back to my school; Dong'an No. 1 middle school. It's because either we're to late to get home, or one bus station doesn't have buses going to Dong'an or we need to blah, blah, blah. It's always an adventure coming home, I'll tell you that. Above are some friends we going home one day; Mike and Summer. They spoke some English and were able to help us find the bus station. These guys were amazing; we asked them how to get to the bus station so we would know what bus to catch and they rode on the bus with us! That is how nice people are here. They even gave us little cell-phone accessories as presents. They rode with us on three buses so we could get on the right bus to Dong'an. They were SO nice and they gave me their QQ so we can be friends. People here are crazy about QQ it's like an IM chat type thing.
Savii and I were on a walk one evening and the army ran right by us! I was surprised to see them and they were surprised to see us! The picture isn't very clear because they were to far away before I was able to get to my camera.
This lady lives on the first floor of my apt building. Her little boys are twins and are so cute. I love the babies here. They look like little eskimo children because they're always so bundled up. What is interesting here is that the babies have a slit in their pants so they can go to the bathroom. One time I was walking down the street and a little boy just had his thing sticking straight out so he could go to the bathroom. Parents will hold their babies on their knees so they can pee and poop on the floor. I wouldn't be surprised if I get peed on before I leave.
Tai Chi lessons! The Kung Fu coach at the school has taught Tai Chi a couple times now. He knows only a couple words in English, which is a ton more than my Chinese! He knows words like, "left, right, palm, back, straight, bent, etc..." Basically enough for us to get the gist. Savanna and I were able to teach him the word, "breathing". We are learning 24 Tai Chi. I have learned 5 of the 24 movements. I love the Kung Fu coach though, he is the sweetest man and is always so happy!
Chinese lessons! Alex and Lucy have become our good friends, they make us laugh so much. We helped Alex come up with his English name. At first we thought his name should be Jordan because his Chinese name, "juo dzi" sounds like Jordan. But he doesn't like it because a lot of the guys here have the English name Jordan, after the NBA star, "Michael Jordan" so he switched to Alex. I am still not use to calling him that.

Savii and I had a 4 hour Chinese lesson yesterday. It was INtense! But I now know how to ask someone to marry me and ask if someone is married (hopefully I won't be asking that questions while I'm here, not that I'm against Chinese guys. I think they're way good looking actually, it's just....I don't want my future plans for my life ruined).

Alex and Lucy teach us Chinese and we teach them English. It's really fun teaching Alex because his pronunciation can be SO funny. We tried to teach him the word, "stinky" but he kept saying, "stinking". Oh how I love those two!
This week I taught about popular American music. They went crazy over my laptop and would surround me so they could get a look at the screen. Some kids came up after class so they could get music. The kids here liked the hip-hop/rap music, pop, dance, country music I played for them but didn't care for the rock music I played, which was sad because rock is my favorite!

These are my students that I teach on Thursdays. Aren't they cute? I just love them!

I am becoming addicted to Chinese dance, pop, and techno music. They play dance music in the supermarkets, clothing stores, and I love it! Alex showed me a neat website where you can get free music. In China music is free and it's completely legal to get free music. I told him that in the States we can get music free but it's illegal because the artists won't make money off of their music. Alex said,"You have to buy music in the United States? Oh that's a shame." So take advantage of the free Chinese music...I am!! They have way more than just Chinese dance and techno music there. Go to http://mp3.baidu.com/ and click on MP3 at the top. Hope this works and that your ears have hours of listening happiness!

Well family and friends I think that is enough for now. Hope this gives you a little more insight into what is happening in my little Chinese lifestyle. I am becoming really attached to my middle school and am grateful I still have a couple months left. Thanks for all of your support, love, and interest in my life. Best wishes.

I Did the Cube

2009-03-05T04:11:00.003-07:00

Yes it is possible to do the Rubicks Cube. I currently did my best time today of 7 minutes and one second. Savanna has been training me ever since I got onto the plane to fly to Hong Kong. Never did I think that I would be able to do it! I hope to get my time down to under a minute. We'll see how that goes...

This week of teaching has been fun. I have been teaching the kids about Life. I ask the kids what their favorite things are to do and such, it has been fun to see what the kids enjoy. It's really cold here and keeps raining!

I have a Chinese name now! It's, Wang Sheow Fan. Here in China they have their family name first, Wang, and then their first name, Sheow Fan. A student helped me pick out the name Wang; it's the name of a famous emperor. Sheow Fan means the most beautiful girl in the village, which I find very flattering! Teachers at a banquet helped me pick it out. I feel a little closer to being Chinese!

Around Dong'an

2009-02-25T03:09:00.031-07:00

I've been here for one week and and six days and have learned a little more about Dong'an. Below are some of my findings...
My apartment building. Notice all of the bars over the windows. I'm completely safe. So safe that my roommate accidentally locked us in her room! We were stuck for a whole hour before we could get out.
A w0rker at the school. I was taking pictures and he insisted that I take a picture of him. :)

More pictures around the school. That is the building I teach some of my classes in. Teachers move from class to class rather than students moving from classroom to classroom. I get lost at least once a day trying to figure out which classroom to go to.
The students dormitory. Look at all of their hanging clothes!
Where the students roam free.A nice Chinese gazebo to play some cards.
Hanging clothes. My favorite is seeing hanging underwear.
The building on the right side is a picture of the teachers lunchroom. I go there once maybe twice a day and have things ranging from fried cabbage (my favorite), potatoes, tofu, veggies, and of course rice. It is interesting because Savanna and I always get served last. We found out why today: those teachers who have worked at the school the longest get served first. We were confused for the longest time why a guy behind us would get served first!
All of the students! Sorry it's sideways, don't know why it's downloading like that. Just tilt your head, that should make it better.
Because the students work 24-7, they have exercises that they do between class 2 and three. It is an amazing sight to see all of those students out there moving around. These kids get up at 6:30 in the morning (the horn so graciously wakes me up) and they have classes and study time til really late. They go to classes everyday and only have Sunday afternoon off. Do not be a foreign exchange student here! Only unless you want to have a good reason to cut your head off...perhaps then you should look into it.
People gathered around in a prayer circle. They light fire crackers everyday. For what reason I have no idea.

Savanna and I were stuck in our school and couldn't leave because our school was over protective. We finally convinced our liaison that we weren't going to get killed or kidnapped (it's a very safe town), so here is what we saw when we escaped from the gate.
The street going out of the school. There are all sorts of food vendors along here.
A view of the main street.
A view of all the commotion that goes on along the streets.
Our first supper at a Chinese restaurant. We ordered using no English. All we had was hand motions and a paper that I brought that had all of the dishes in Chinese. My pointer finger is my best friend. The ladies at the restaurant gathered around the paper in curiosity wondering what it contained. Oh please do not notice that my chopsticks sticking straight up out of the rice; it's a death omen.
A lady selling fried sweet bread. She was so excited to have her picture taken.

Pictures around town. I really like water.

Notice a man rowing a little canoe in the lower right-hand corner.

Market place at night.

This past weekend I traveled with my roommate Savanna to a couple of our friends schools. While we were there we saw a group of break dancers! They were really good.

Thanks for taking a little trip around Dong'an with me! It was loads of fun. Next time either I need to take less pictures or you need to come here and stay!

A Celebrity Teaching English

2009-02-17T01:46:00.003-07:00

I have now taught nine classes so far. It has been fun and hard. Here in China classes are different. There are several different classes and the students stay in their classes while the teacher travels from room to room. That has been complicated and I have had to ask several people to point me to the right classroom. When I walk into the classroom all of the students clap because they are excited to see me. Haha, rather than being a teacher I feel like I should dance, play the banjo, or do magic tricks or something. Certainly not teach English.

Teaching can be really tiring. I can tell that by the end of this week my voice might be gone!

Below is a picture of me teaching the kids on my first day. There are around 50 to 60 kids in each class.
After our first day teaching. Savanna, Jacob (head of China Horizons), and I went to go get facials. Chinese facials are amazing and they are on $7 for an hour! It was interesting to be getting your face lotioned, massaged, and primped, and not be able to speak a word of Chinese to the person who is giving this wonderful service. I proceeded to get my face massaged enjoying every second of it, even though I could not communicate my thanks to her. Jacob translated what the lady said and the lady said that Savanna and I are welcome to come to get our faces done anytime we want and that we are friends and that she might have us over for dinner. China is awesome! Can life get much better than this? I submit that it cannot.
Well, there is a little more info on teaching life. Kids tell me I am beautiful whenever I walk into the classroom. One kid asked me in front of the whole class if we could go to dinner sometime. This place is definitely a self-esteem raiser! It's fun to go from a life where you are just an average person to a place where everyone loves you. I recommend coming to China if you want everyone to "oooh and ahhh" over you.

I Have 24-7 Access

2009-02-13T23:08:00.038-07:00

I'm alive! I finally have internet in my apartment. I didn't realize how dependent I was on the internet and technology until I didn't have it. It has been nice to be on a media fast for a bit... I also have a cute new pink nokia phone, which I need to figure out if I can text internationally. Here texts cost only .016 of a jiao which is really cheap (1 american dollar is 6.7ish yuan and there are 10 jiao's in a yuan).

Anyways, lets see how to update the world on my activities over the last week. We'll start with the plane ride over here. Below is saying good-bye's to the family. It was bitter-sweet. It was sad to say good-bye but I was excited to leave on this grand adventure.
Myself and Savanna getting onto the plane to go to San Francisco. It was neat getting onto the plane outside bc for me that usually doesn't happen!

On our lay-over we stopped in San Francisco. We had a couple hours to burn before our 15 hour red-eye flight to Hong Kong so we thought we'd break up the monotony and go into the city. Above is a sculpture that they had in the middle of Embarcadero by Armand Vaillancourt.

The Bay Bridge. We met an interesting fellow, Leonardo, while we were there. He took one of our pictures for us and he could tell we were a bunch of lds mormon kids because of our white skin, happy faces, polo's t's and blue-jeans. The fact that we said we were from Utah helped a bit.

Woot! almost there. The flight wasn't even that bad. I was a little sick at the start of the flight bc of the lack of sleep the few nights before. Everything was okay after I slept for a bit. I actually really enjoyed the flight bc there were tons of movies, games, and tv shows gallore. I would do it again.
This is the double-decker buses that we rode to go to our hotel. We were such American tourists on the bus it was hilarious: loud and taking pictures of everything in sight. The first things i noticed aboutHong Kong was that I grew a few inches over the flight, all the smog in the air, the water over the ocean, and all of the pretty buildings.

Here's most of the group in front of Hong Kong. Isn't it pretty bc of the scenery yet gross bc of the smog? Funny story: it was Jacob's birthday (our group leader) and we all sung, "Happy birthday" to him. We got many inquisitive looks and smiles from the passersbys. After singing, one of the kids in our group talked to one of the Hong Kong-er guys and the guy wanted a picture with the whole group! What's even more funny is he then wanted a picture with just me! haha, he pushed away everyone else in the group and even his friend bc he wanted just me in his picture.
Pizza Hut is like a gourmet restaurant there. It's all shiny and ritzy inside. Don't worry I didn't eat there, i'm not THAt addicted to american food, haha.

Chinese Toys R Us. They're Toystore totally whomps US toy store. They even had an Easy Bake Oven Sushi kit. I just wish I could have taken all my little cousins there to show them the extravagant toy store.
We rode a ferry around Hong Kong to see the night laser show in celebration of Chinese New Years. You can see my head in the right-hand corner.
HONG KONG Temple! While driving past it, it blends right in with the other buildings, which is different from the beautiful buildings in the US. It is a lovely building, but small-sized in comparison with the efficient and large Utah temples. We had church in that building the first Sunday, we had to wear head-phones while the Relief Society president translated. I was so spacey during that meeting bc there was so much going on in my mind: jet-lag, the chinese speaker, the cute little puffy-clothes baby sitting the chair next to us, and the english translation.
It is interesting to notice different habits I have such as opening a hymn book or running water on my tooth-brush before I brush (then I realized that the hymn book is in Chinese or that the water is not good to use...I still haven't broken that habit).

Good ol' Jackie Chan! China is obsessed with the man. He is on everything from cookie boxes to socks, to music videos (I will discuss this later on), etc.

On the tram to go to the look out point at Victoria's Peak. It was so steep! Thank goodness for breaks. Notice that I am wearing a skirt and cardigan, it was SO warm there! LOVE it.
At the top! You can see for miles. If it weren't for the smog you could see further.
Views of the ocean and city.

Dinner with the group in Hong Kong. I tried Jelly Fish! It was weird, and tasted like a soft, flavored, rubber bouncy ball.
We went to the Ten Thousand Buddahs Monastery which actually has 12,800 miniature statues lining the walls of its main temple. There were several stairs ascending up to the temples at the top. I thought I was going to die before I was going to get there. Maybe it's symbolic of the ascent to heaven.
Chinese Pagoda.

More Buddhas.

After our ascent to the Buddhas, Melinda and I got some Bean Curd Dessert. That literally what it is: bean curd (tofu) with juice and sugar. It's an interesting dessert. The group didn't care for it much. I think they're just Tofuphobes.
This is the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple. It was interesting to be the only white people there. It felt like we almost didn't belong there because there were several people there who were worshiping. It was an amazing sight to see not only because of the lavender incense-filled air, but because of the mass of people going to worship and pray.

Kevin getting his fortune told. There are so many stands and places that are filled with fortune tellers. We fortunately found and English-speaking fortune teller. He told Kevin that he will have an sad beginning but a successful ending. He also went into detail about Chinese history. What I learned that day is: do not go to Chinese fortune tellers. So although I don't believe in Chinese fortune telling, I still want to get my palm read someday just to see how long my life line is or if I'll be successful in love.
After having a fun time in Hong Kong, we traveled and went to Changsha in Hunan Province. I crossed the border and am now finally in mainland China! I also got another stamp in my passport :). There is a difference between China and Hong Kong and that is not to sound negative: muck. Things just feel sticky, I think it's more than the humidity. I'm not sure how to explain it.

It was Crazy arriving in Changsha because us white-folks are definitely more noticeable and stand out like a sore thumb. We get stares everywhere we go. It is odd to walk down the street and know that everyone is watching everything you do. It is flattering in a way.

Below is a picture of the the last day of Chinese New Year in Changsha. The chinese really know how to party. There were lanterns, fireworks galore and tons of traffic. Oh the streets are CRAZY here!!!! The lines on the roads are guidelines, the cars weave in and out of each other, they don't stop at stop lights, and the honk ALL of the time. Honking is not a rude gesture like it is in the States, but more of a reminder that a car is coming along side of another car.
This little girl is just an example of all of the commotion that happened that night. Because the group wall all together we attracted tons of people. Many people wanted pictures with us. One lady asked if I would take a picture with her husband. The girl in the picture below pulled both Melinda and me aside and asked us to be in her picture. She also gave us both blinky rings and took another picture.
While we were walking around this park, there were all of these rides you could go on. On the side of the street there was a man drawing profiles. I decided to get my face drawn. Masses of people swarmed around and they would look at my face and then look at the guy's drawing and compare. The guy ended up giving me his 'QQ' number which I guess is huge here in China. QQ is a chatting thing online. Below is the end result. It's Danielle asian style. Not bad, he did a great job on the scarf and my eyes.
Because all of the taxis were taken we rode motorcycles back to our hotel! I LOVE motorcycles. It was my first time riding one for a longer than a couple of minutes. It was great feeling the wind in my hair. Even though the ride was totally worth it I got ripped off bc I couldn't speak the language. He made me pay double which is 20 yuan, which still isn't bad but it should have been ten. Oh well it was totally worth it.
Isn't she cute? This is a picture of the body of the Marquess of Dai, a queen from the Han dynasty in the Hunan Provincial Museum. They extracted her from her magnificent multi-layered lacquered coffin after 2100 years! Her body is marvelously pickled.
This felt next picture felt like going home. It was funny because we had to have a representative help us find shampoo. The other workers thought it was very funny that we couldn't find it. They were cracking jokes and being all giggly. It's an interesting phenomenon to be laughed at and not have the capacity to understand what they are laughing at.
Finally Savanna and I arrived in Dong'an which is where we will be teaching. We met our liazon, Mr. Beard. He is really nice, short man, who speaks very loud English, almost with a heavy Russian accent (nothing personal if you're Russian). They call him Mr. Beard because that is the name he picked out for himself. We had a 5 hour drive from Changsha to Dong'an, it was a nice pleasant drive filled with lots of different scenarie of rice filled and old shacks. It was all very rustic. We stopped at a place to eat and that was our vow of friendship. After Mr. Beard said, "We have now eaten food and now we are friends".

Below is a picture outside the window of where Savanna and I will be staying. I love all of the buildings, rice fields, and growing things. The place where we stay is definitely more than I expected, even though it has a squatting toilet, I still think eventually it can be called home.
This is the living room of my apt. It's very open and nice.
This is my bedroom, ignore the mess, I've been unpacking.
I think I experienced what people call, "culture-shock" at our first banquet on the first night we were here. We: Savanna, myself, Mr. Beard, the headmaster, and several other teachers had dinner together. Compared to American standards this business dinner was very informal with several toasts and filling of shot glasses with alcohol. One man filled my glass with alcohol and it was interesting to tell this man with out speaking his language that I do not drink alcohol. I realize that I am an extremely picky eater: no tea, alcohol, and no meat. Haha, anyways this is quite the experience. Everyone spits on the ground and even will blow their nose out onto the ground. I think I had a little bit of indigestion between nerves and trying to get over the fact that everyone was basically yelling at each other and laughing hysterically as they has more alcohol while trying to communicate with me in another tongue.

Savanna and I also had another banquet the next day with the Group leader of grade 3. I teach grade 2, Savanna grade 1. They loved my 'golden hair'. They told Savanna and I that we are very beautiful, more beautiful than the original 4 chinese women put together. After the men compared heights with me to see who was taller...I won fair and square. We all then went kareoking and dancing. Savanna and I sang, "Dancing Queen" by Abba. They really wanted us to sing, "my heart will go on" by Celine Dion. Anyways we danced a lot and I learned some dance moves.

I could go on about more things but I think that is enough for now. Kudos to you for getting this far. I teach on Monday and have a lesson to finish preparing and also a talk to write for church tomorrow. Thanks for everything. Zai Jain!

Hello World!

2009-02-02T11:41:00.003-07:00

Hi family and friends, welcome to my blog! In this blog I plan to write about my travels in China and anything else I find interesting or catches my attention at the moment. I am excited keep you all updated and informed about my adventures. Feel free to leave comments!

1 Pair Today 2 Tomorrow

2009-01-24T15:02:00.007-07:00

While preparing for China I was trying to find a good pair of loafers. As I google searched "street shoes", TOMS came up. For every pair of TOMS you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. The shoes are really cute and comfy too. So not only are your feet well cared for, another child's is too.

Say Cheese!

2009-01-19T23:08:00.003-07:00

As I am preparing to go to China I have had to look for the optimal camera that I am going to want for my travels. It was a difficult process I had to go through to finally find the one that matched my personality. At first I got an Olympus but soon found out that that camera was not a match for me and returned it. I went back to the wonderful store Costco after more research and decided on a Canon, but then several other cameras caught my eye. Thankfully an elderly gentleman came and put my mind at ease as he told me about the Panasonic Lumix TZ5. It is all that I could want in a camera: 9.1 megapixel, 10x optical zoom, 3 inch LCD screen, a cross between a point-and-shoot and an actual camera, and it also has had good reviews and takes great pictures. I have had a lot of fun with it so far just taking pictures of random things and using it at the Sundance film festival. This camera is going to be my best friend over the next while because it will stay with me through the thick-and-thin I am very glad that I found the camera of my dreams!