My 21st Birthday

It was such a great day. We were in Nanjing for the first part of the day where we did some shopping and ate amazing Chinese street food. It was really fun to be in the big city. We then caught a train back to Changzhou and went to Pizza Hut for dinner. The food was so good. The pizza tasted just like American pizza; even better. The girls all chipped in and bought my dinner and a little ice cream cake at the restaurant. I was so happy, as I often get an ice cream cake for my birthday. I was happy with the day and how my birthday was spent. After we got back to our apartments Carly told me that we had a meeting in her room in ten minutes. When I walked into the room, all the girls were there, with King and Andy (two Chinese teachers that we always hang out with) singing happy birthday to me! I couldn't believe it! They had thrown me a surprise birthday party. It was so cute! I guess everyone knew for about two weeks that they were going to do that, but I was shocked. I had no idea. I've always wanted a surprise birthday, and past attempts were always ruined. haha, who knew it would finally happen in China. The school bought the cake... its funny that it was a coffee cake. Nonetheless, it was delicious and even better that it was for my birthday!

Home Away from Home

This is my home away from home. All six of us American teachers have our own room... complete with our own bed, desk, washer and dryer and even squatter.

These are pictures of the school campus. The building with the red columns are the dormatories. I live on the fourth floor. The building with yellow on the roof is the wonderful cafateria and other building is the school we teach at. I love our school campus and am grateful for my cute room!

Journey to Changzhou

The day started out with a bus ride to the train station in Hong Kong. The train station only allowed us to check one suitcase, which they charged us for... meaning we had to check the lighter bag so we wouldn't get charged as much. All of us were so confused about what to do or where to go that we were just running around the train station laughing because I'm sure we looked pretty funny! We were also trying to hurry because we were afraid we were going to miss our train, and that definitely wouldn't be good. Luckily we made it to the train and all got on just fine. Our suitcases were so heavy that all the Chinese people were just laughing at us as we tried to put our suitcases in the over head racks. Its OK though, we worked together and got it done. The train ride was about an hour and a half and we enjoyed the little break of lugging our suitcases around.

The next part in our journey... finding Mr. Wu. Mr. Wu is a teacher from the school we are teaching at. He was suppose to meet up with us and take us to the school so we would get there safely. As soon as we found him, we were all so happy to find him so we didn't have to make this journey alone. The only problem with Mr. Wu is that he doesn't speak hardly any English at all. That made it very difficult to know what we needed to do. Mr. Wu told us that our bags weren't going to go with us on the train and that they would come two days later. So we had to pack everything we were going to need for the next two days. Then it was a mad rush following Mr. Wu around the packed train station, trying to keep up with him, dodging Chinese people, and trying to understand what was going on. It was CRAZY! After probably two hours of trying to get our luggage and ourselves from one train station to the next, we were on the next train headed to Changzhou. This train was a sleeper train, they stacked the beds three high, with two sets of the beds in each "room." Then we just chilled on the train for the next 18 hours. It was very cramped and there were hundreds of people cramped into this little train cart. How people live like this, I don't know. Mr. Wu bought us tons of Chinese food on the train and we were able to try all kinds of interesting food. Sometimes I just sat and watched the Chinese people eat. It is almost disturbing. Everything that is unacceptable in America is totally acceptable in China. Like double dipping, cutting your food with your teeth and putting it back on the plate, spitting the bones or the food you don't like on the table... its pretty funny.

After the 18 hour train ride, we went to this other building where all of our suitcases were. It turned out that all our luggage came with us and we were able to take it with is that day to Changzhou. Yeah! We were so happy! Mr. Wu told us the bus from the school would be here to pick us up in 30 minutes.

so we waited ...

and waited...

3 hours later we were still waiting

and waiting...

Finally after 6 and a half hours the bus was here to pick us up! We all clapped and screamed for joy. We just wanted to be at the school, in our beds.

The bus ride back took us about two hours and to our surprise, the night wasn't over yet. Mr. Wu took us to a nice restaurant where we met up with some other teachers from the school. King, Andy, Mr. White, and Mr. Wu all ate dinner with us. As we sat down at the table, there were bottles of beet by our plates. "Drink" Mr. Wu said as he motioned to drink the beer. "Let's celebrate." We all looked at each other and chuckled. As we tried to explain to them that we didn't drink beer, they didn't seem to understand. Carly (my headteacher) said "we NEVER drink beer, not EVER." They told us it was OK, it could be our first time. haha. How do you explain to a bunch of men that don't speak an English that we don't drink beer? Finally they stopped pushing it and gave us some orange juice to drink. What a funny experience.

After a very interesting dinner, we FINALLY arrived at the school. We were happy to be there and finally in our own rooms. It was nice to be somewhere I can call home while in China.

The Hong Kong Experience

I have now been in China for a week and a half. Wow! What an adventure it has been. The adventure all started with packing. Yes, packing my bags. How does the airport expect a girl to pack for four months in two suitcases that have to weight less than 50 pounds?? I don't know, but somehow I did it. I didn't get to bring everything I would have liked to, but oh well, I can't have everything.


I met up with all the ILP students and the airport on Wednesday August 20th. All of us were very excited to start our journey. After our 2 hour plane ride to San Fransisco, 18 hour plane ride to Taipei and another two hour plane ride to Hong Kong, we were exhausted! We even had to eat weird Chinese food on the plane... the first tastes of what we were going to be eating for the next four months.



When we arrived in Hong Kong, Matthew, our tour guide, met us at the airport and we all loaded our luggage onto the bus. As we drove away from the airport, Matthew explained that there was a hurricane coming and advised us to stay inside that night. All of us in-land Americans started freaking out! A hurricane?!?! He said it like it was no big deal. As we arrived at the hotel, there were signs of the hurricane on the way. It was pouring rain, all the millions of shops on the streets were closed, and the roads were empty. We quickly got our stuff in the YMCA International house (the hotel we stayed at). By that time, I was mad that I had packed so much because I had to lug it around EVERYWHERE and it is not easy.

The hurricane didn't scare me or the five other girls I was with; we were only in Hong Kong once and wanted to see the sights. We walked around the barren streets and eventually found the harbor. The harbor was beautiful filled with lights and "storm approaching" waters. What a sight to see. After we left the harbor we found a Hard Rock Cafe! What a treat. We were all so excited to get to eat some good American food one more time before the actual Chinese food began that we couldn't pass up the opportunity. I ate the fattest hamburger and fries I probably have ever eaten in my life! It was amazingly good; worth every bite.

After Hard Rock, we had to almost run all the way home. The hurricane rating was at an 8... a 10 is when the hurricane actually hits the hardest. It may have been dangerous to go out that night, but it was worth the risk.

The next day we took a tour of Hong Kong. What a beautiful city. It was neat to see the buildings everywhere and the way people live here. Everyone lives in apartment buildings. Some were decent looking, others looked like they were going to fall apart any minute. Matthew said that 7 million people live in Hong Kong and 2 of those 7 million live in government funded housing. Those apartment buildings were the worst looking out of any of the buildings. It was really sad. One interesting thing about China is that they don't build the skyscrapers in one general area... the are everywhere. Every time you turn your head, you see more and more skyscrapers.

When the tour was over, some of the ILP students had the chance to go to the Hong Kong Temple. What an experience that was. It was just another testimony that the gospel is true everywhere.


The next morning we woke up and packed out bags to travel to our various cities... little did we know what the next days had in store of us.

Switching Places

Only two days away. I'm getting very excited, nervous, anxious all at the same time. Ever since I was accepted into the program in October, I have been going to teach in Kunming. I was excited about going there and have done research to find out more about where I would be. I talked to some other people that taught there, and they all had wonderful things to say about Kunming. Then, on Friday I got a letter from the ILP office telling me and the three other girls I'm going with that they want us to go to another school! I was freaking out! I couldn't believe that it was only five days before we planned on leaving and now we're going to a completely different place! It is called Changzhou. It is about three hours north west of Shanghai. I guess China wanted to open a new school to American teachers and ILP wanted to be the first in, so that they can start expanding the program. And for some reason they chose me to be the in the first group of teachers to go. I am flattered and honored to go. But with it being a new school comes a new set of problems. I need to bring more supplies than what I had originally planned. The school will probably be unorganized and not as focused because they don't know what to expect. I'll have the chance of telling the cook what foods us Americans do and don't like. But on the bright side, I'll get to live like a real Chinese man and eat what he eats. Its all good though. I'm sure everything will work out. I'm excited for the new opportunity and happy they picked me to go open a new school.

Just Starting

So I decided to get with technology and start a blog. I am leaving in 16 days and going to China to teach English for a semester! I can't believe I'm am actually going to do something like this. It has always been a dream, a fantasy to do a study abroad type thing, and now I get to go. This isn't something common in my family. No one does this. My sister went to Europe for a week in high school, my brother has never been out of the country, besides family vacations to Mexico and my dad is all about getting school done and moving on to the next thing in your life So it is kind of fun to be the first in my family to take on a opportunity like this. My mom says it is what people do in "my day in age." She is all about generation x and y and what we are like and why we do the things we do. It is kind of funny. So now, she expects my little sister to do something like this because it is "just what her generation does."

I've have been signed up to go to China since October 2007... a long time ago. And now it is only 16 days away. Everyone has been asking me, "Are you excited to go? Are you ready?" And the answer is yes! I am mentally ready to take on the task, but as far as ready and packed... not so much. I'm sure I won't have that done till about an hour before I have to be on the plane.

This blog is to record all my happenings in China. All the funny stories and learning experiences that are going to come along with the trip. I can't wait for them to start. Bring them on!