Who Knew I Was A Morning Person

We went on an adventure to the city part of our city. We got on a bus and it took about 30 minutes to get to an area by Tianyi Square. The city is huge! It was fun walking around. We went to the outskirts of the city to an area where there were some shops set up for the lantern festival. We met some people who speak English and are about our age and one named Eric is going to be showing us around sometime. But while we were just walking and looking around everyone stared at us of course and they would kind of secretly take pictures of us. It wasn't until this lady came over with her grandkid and started talking to us and her son was taking pictures of us with his kid and suddenly everyone was talking pictures of us. We were surrounded by a crowd who were taking pictures and trying to get their kids to be in the picture with us. It was fun and crazy. We left there and went to Tianyi Square. Its a huge shopping center and we had KFC. It was interesting, but really good. They pulled out a menu and we just pointed and told them how many and sometimes they asked questions but it was pretty easy to answer cause they were pointing and using hand gestures too.

I'm getting use to being around people who can't understand me and I'm afraid that I will come back and start making comments out loud forgetting that people back home can understand me.

It's an adventure! I think everyone should come to China at some point in their life.

Yesterday we had church at 10:00am. It was in our apartment. We had 4 other people besides the 11 of us. Two live her in Ningbo as teachers. One is a private teacher and the other is a teacher at the school. One is here for business from England and the last one is a non member from Slovakia who teaches here at our school and is investigating the church. It's nice that we get to take the sacrament. We are just chilling out in the apartment. My roommate Sarah is taking a nap. I never thought I would be a morning person but the past two days I've been up at 6 or 6:30 and I go to bed around 9.

I think that the more I stay here and visit with everyone the more I will like it and enjoy being here. I really love the people so far and I know I will love them even more as I get to know them. I am excited to meet the kids. We start teaching Wednesday.

I've put pictures up on Instagram. Pictures here coming soon. 

Day Two: Am I Really In China

So yesterday we finally figured out how to get hot water.  We only get it right now between 7:00pm-7:40pm.  So that is fun.  We were so excited!  So easy to please.  Hot water is a necessity!!

I really like the food. Although some of it is really bland.  Some of the soups need salt.  I actually got up at 6:30am today.  Everyone be surprised.  Most of us went to bed around 8 or 8:30 last night.  

We don't start teaching till Wednesday.  Most of the teachers will arrive on Monday and the kids on Tuesday.  The campus for the school is huge.  So many buildings.  

On weekends we have our own cook.  The others don't get fed on the weekends by the school.  So we have a strict meal schedule. 7:20 is breakfast, 11:00 is lunch, and dinner is at 4:30.  Very early meals.

It's easy to get into a groove here.  It will be interesting once our classes start. We only teach two hours a day and it switches between morning and afternoon.  One night class and Fridays they are both in the morning.  

The school is nice and strange.  Some things are very nice like the counter tops in the bathroom but you look at the walls and they are peeling and falling apart.  Guess its what ever you prioritize.

I'll have pictures up soon.

Just got back from a walk around our area.  We went to an area that had some street shops but mostly it was gated companies.  Almost everything is gated.  There is a huge contrast between inside and outside the gates.  Outside there is rubble and garbage everywhere.  I am not kidding.  They have this side walk that is also a mini road for scooters and bikes and they are dirty and bumpy.  All the roads are bumpy.  No one uses signals, they honk when they pass people of switch lanes.  Sometimes they honk at us to get our attention and then they just stare at us.  We did meet a bunch of people.  One of them spoke a bit of English and that was nice.  We also saw a traffic cop who helped us cross the street.  That was cool.  The sun is shining through the clouds and smog today and it feels great, even though I still have to wear my coat.  It was so freezing last night.  It will be nice to get our bus passes.  That way we can see and do more.  

It's still kind of hitting me that we are in China.  You would think that the fact that I can't understand anyone and the scenery is so different that it would hit me more but not really.  So strange.  It will happen eventually. 

What A Trip!

Well its been an interesting trip so far with the flights.  I don’t think I’ve ever stayed so long in airports before.  We left at 2:25 from Salt Lake City, Utah had a short flight to Phoenix, Arizona.  We had a two hour layover there and flew to LA, California.  When we arrived in California we had to get our checked luggage and take it down to the Korean Air check in.  It was literally on the other side of the airport.  
Lugging luggage that weighs more than myself is not a great thing.  A couple of us got lucky.  A guy gave us one of those luggage carrier things about half way there so that was a blessing. We had a 5 and a half hour layover in LA so after we checked in we got dinner and headed to go through security once again.  We spent a good amount of time chilling till we boarded.  The plane we got on was a three, three, three, seat plane.  I had a window seat which was nice and our 13.5 hour flight began.  They gave us slippers and a mini toothbrush, served us drinks, later a full dinner (mine was potatoes, beef, veggies, mozzerella and tomatoes, a pineapple dessert), and than we tried to sleep.  Wow so uncomfortable, I am so sore, but I did get some sleep amazingly.  Woke up about 3 hours till our destination and watched a movie.  They gave us hot towels and served us a full breakfast (a muffin, yogart, pastry, pineapple).  We arrived in Seoul at 5:55am Thursday.  We had to go thru another security and went to our terminal.  We had a Hello Kitty Cafe right by us and I got a pineapple yogart smoothie.  We got onto our plane at 8:15am.  It was a two, four, two seater.  
So we are currently seating in the Shanghai Airport.  Apparently there was a miscomunication and the Chinese Cordinators thought we were all coming on Saturday instead of today so we are sitting here and waiting.  The airport is huge.  We have decided that our motto is “to expect the worst, so when the best happens we will be pleasently surprised.”  Hope all of you are having fun, cause we are bored.  

We left the airport around 4 and got into a bus/van looking car.  It was getting dark and starting to rain.  We drove for an hour and it was so hard to not fall asleep.  We stopped at a station and had our first experience with very cold squat toliets.  There was a small store and we bought some snacks and juice.  I got juice and it was really good.  We had a two hour drive to our school.  Most of us fell asleep.  We got to the school and it was drizzling.  We had to carry our luggage up to the third floor.  Wow that was not fun.  We have such heavy luggage.  We picked rooms and went to eat dinner.  They call it the cantina.  We had rice and noodles and leeks and something that we didn’t know what it was but it was sweet.  It was pretty good but we were all tired and didn’t really want to eat.  We went back to our rooms and Sarah and I rearranged our room and set up most everything.  We have WIFI but its password protected so when you actually read this we will have gotten the password.  The beds are wood with a small pad on it and its actually read comfortable.  I slept very deeply.  Our rooms are warm but the bathroom, shower room and entry are freezing.  We woke up at 7.  We went to breakfast at 7:25.  The breakfast was really good.  Rice with leeks, choco frosted flakes, warm rolls with a sweet bean paste, noodles, oranges, and a seseme layered pastry.  Now we are getting ready to go to the supermarket.  

The Market was huge and kinda confusing.

Well that's all for now.

Leaving On A Jet Plane!

Today we leave for China! We have a lot of long flights and layovers. I can't believe we are actually leaving! So excited and nervous, but a good nervous. I will try and post all I can with lots of pictures.