Mary Beth

Rants and Raves

2010-10-12T21:21:00.001-07:00

Alright may I just get a couple things off my chest... I am a pretty calm person for the most part, but I hate....well hate. I just don't understand how people can ruin childs innocence by making them protest at funerals of people who were either gay or soldier's. There is a church called the Westboro Baptist Church and I just would like to express my anger to them.....ANGER! There. . . they do not realize that they are literally ruining people's lives. They believe that anyone who is not a member of their church will go to hell. . . (hey guys at least it'll be crowded). I do not see the point of holding up signs that say "god hates Ameica" "God hates fags" "thank God for dead soldiers" I really don't. Now as I was saying earlier I really don't get angry easily, but I am literally so mad that I just can't express all my anger in a blog. I just..AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. oK even now I don't feel better.

Final China post two months late!

2009-10-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

Hey so I got back from China about two months ago, but I never got to update my blog after the government blocked it so I figured maybe I would try to update it again. So I guess I'll start in Xi'an again and then Beijing and then I'll move on to my final days. Sad.Ya know I really enjoyed my time in China. I wish I kept in better touch with the fourteen people I was with for those five months and I'll have to work on it. Here's our group picture.

There are a couple of people missing. This is right before we left for home. The day of our big performance. The kids were so cute. I miss them so much. I hope I will be able to go see them some day. I hope they will remember me. So here's some more of Xi'an...

So this is just another close up of the pandas. They are soooo cute. Sorry if I put in duplicate pictures. I'm just sorta going with the flow and I have a lot of ground to cover. Literally our zoos have nothing on Chinese zoos, you can literally touch the animals and get so close to them and they don't look as depressed to be caged. It's cute really.

Peacock! Ha you have no idea the effort it took to actually get these birds to flair their feathers. There actually was a couple of people there who were yelling at the birds. . . we just sat there and listened then took pictures when it worked.

So this is at The Wall in Xi'an right before we biked across it. This is Victoria and Jennifer. They taught in Guzhen, but they were friends with Luis and Conrad and came to our place quite frequently. I miss them a lot. They had so much energy. They actually extended and went to Cambodia and Vietnam. Isn't that pretty sweeeeet.

Me with the guard. Mine looks a lot more serious.

One of the pagodas on the top of the wall. Prettty.

HHHHAAAAA sunny looks so tired and we haven't even biked it yet. This was just trying to show how long it was.

My way of getting around the wall. Let me tell you....these things aren't that easy to ride when you're 5'10. I had to be in the front or else I couldn't pedal actually. I shared the bike with Miss Katie Steck and it was so funny because we actually rode around the wall. Most of the tourists we saw were going just around in buggies driven by other people. Granted it was hot and I would've traded them in a heart beat. I don't regret doing it this way. It was way fun.

Well this is at one of the corners. I like the view. Ha man those tube tops. They freakin saved me.

That looks kinda cool doesn't it.

This is me and Katie actually on the bike. Man I should totally put the video I made on here. I tried to take a video while steering one of these suckers. Needless to say....It didnt' work too well.

Here's the video of us on the bike

This is the group that went on the wall. It goes Me, Aaron, Jennifer, Victoria, Sunny, Katie and Luis. Great bunch of people. Super fun!

I could shoot myself in the foot. This place is called.....Muslim quarters I think? It was basically a church, we saw some monks walking around and taking care of it, but I don't think it was really used anymore. I stood in front of this sign because I of course have no idea what the beans it means. Muah ha ha ha.

Cool looking tree. Right outside this place by the way is a ton of shopping in a very popular outdoor shopping area. That area is called Muslim quarters so I don't remember the name to the church. This place was awesome. I got most of my souvenirs here. Including the water piggies!

This was the final site. The actual church. We weren't allowed in. It's so weird to think of how old some of this stuff was. I mean we think a hundred year old building is old? No way.

Hiding from Sunny who, inadvertantly, was taking the picture. I just totally made that word up in that sentence. I don't even know what it means! So if it's wrong then my bad.

Well yes I would also like a random mirror on the ceiling wouldn't you?

Ok so me and katie and victoria had to rush out of muslim quarters to make the show we had signed up for at night. It was a sing and dance thing. It was pretty cool. OH wait back to this dune buggy story. So of course they couldn't fit all of us in one even after insisting so they gave me my own, oh the gloriousness of being fat in China, and we were trying to get through these huge groups of people and of course they were just all staring at me. I think we were a little late but we made it on time.

They basically were amazing. It's a band. It's in a famous opera house and we were so underdressed it was funny.

I mean just look at their outfits.

Those girls you see dancing in movies with the really long sleeves.....ya I saw them live. They were so amazing. They just throw the sleeves and catch them and it looks so cool.

There's a picture of them twirling the sleeves.

The train ride back home. :(

LOok I got skinny. Don't worry! I have gained it back. hahahaha. No it's actually a little depressing. I was so excited. I'll have to start running again or something.
And yet....this was my diet. No joke. Pizza everyday and popcorn and icecream. How does this happen you ask? I couldn't even tell ya.

The mountainous view from the bottom of our apartments.

Karaoke? Night! I don't know how to spell that sorry. Mary and Gloria took us to do some singing!

Me and Katie getting our tunes on. Probably singing some heavy metal hahahah.

LOOK ducks!

AND sneaky spies!

Oh yes! Jodi me and Katie. How wonderful. Jodie sang the most and was the least embarrassed.

I don't think Luis wanted to sing.

Go KYLEE it's your birthday!

A swirly thingy.

Ya know... monsoon season is just awesome. I loved the cooler weather. oK kidding it was never cool weather, this was in a random downpour. This was from my apartment to the school. Literally a thirty second walk.

The puddles accruing on the floor. That basically took away my plans of playing tug of war that day because well....they would just slip all over.

I love these kids. They love the camera. This was Nico, Annie and Josephine.

As the semester came to an end I tried to get good pictures of the groups of kids so I could actually remember what groups they were in. This class was probably my worst. Let's see... Chris is the one in the front covering his face. Libby with the pink purse, man she hated me. hahaha Beil on the far right.... BALE! haha Satala pointing the gun at me in the back. I could never remember her name for the longest time.

Pretty flowers and a good view of our school. It was four floors and we of course were on the fourth. ahhaa

Tony is the little kid. Me and Katie taught next door to each other so we talked a lot in between classes.

My home room! God I love this class. Poppy, Tom, Nigel, Belle, Llily, Michael on the floor out of the picture, Blue,Sky, Wendy (who wasn't actually in my class) and Ben. Freakin awesome class. I miss you guys!

I swear they had a crush on each other. They were the best speakers. Nigel was basically fluent and would often translate things for me.

SEE how close! Those are my apartments. Taken from my schoolroom

I let Nigel take my camera and take pictures. Poppy and sky. Like my word in the background. I loved teaching word. It was so freakin easy and they liked it when you played games that involved beating each other with rulers.

And there they go destroying all my hard work. Typical. hahaha

This snail had a freakin sea shell on its back. It was huge. Sorry I'm getting a little carried away with the pictures. I just like reminiscing.

My bed. HHa man I remember that bed sheet was so freakin big for the bed. It was just a box spring, but I got so used to it. I personalized my wall with photos and a calendar to the countdown of going home.

When Azure left we converted her bed to a hold it all bed.Mostly sunny haha. That's right JIM.

I swear there weren't always shoes just lying on our kitchen counter, but I had just attempted to kill a cockroach. Now I'm going to introduce everyone because I miss them and I'm sure I've already done this but bare with me.
Jeanette

Man she was my head teacher and she was so amazing. She let me eat some of her cake... ya actual cake. I was in her room watching all the seasons of lost probably more than I was in my room. Not to mention that she let me use her oven to cook my baked potatoes all the time. She is so amazing and spoke Chinese so well. She could get us anywhere we needed to go and it was awesome watching everyones faces when they realized she was actually speaking chinese. It amde me laugh. You are awesome Jeanette!

Kylee

Kylee Kylee Kylee, I miss you so much! You were so funny. I loved how we were both in Jeanettes room more than anything. We both ate so many baked potatoes and pizza that it wasn't even funny! Ok it was. You were so good with the kids. They freakin loved you to death and that's awesome. I'm not even kidding when I say I miss you. You were like me and loved sleeping in too. Man people used to give you such crap for that I remember.

Jen
Jen was the first one to get her hair cut in China and it looked good! I think she actually left it in that style she liked it so much. Jen was awesome. She was so great to hang out with and would french braid my hair because she's just that sweet. She went from teaching kindergarten to teaching third grade and she did the transformation beautifully. I'm jealous. You look great all the time Jen.

Katie

Miss Katie Steck. She was my neighbor in two ways and so amazing. She had the happiest energy in the whole group and was always making people laugh. She was always willing to help out and painted I think 25 kids faces in like ten minutes. Not to mention she painted our faces too and without complaint every time. She taught me a lot of new games and was amazing with the kids. She knew when to be strict and when to joke around with them. I miss Miss Katie Steck.

Jodi

Jodi! She brought more luggage than anyone I think and her and Jess actually had to use other peoples luggage on the way home. You were great though. She was our library and art coordinator. She had some of the best props for our final perfomances and she deserved it. Jodi was always in style and was a blast to hang out with on the great wall! She ate the scorpion first ya know! Brave little lass.

Jessica

Jessica was the second most luggage in the entire place. But they both used all of it and she was really good at packing it at the end. She would also french braid my hair too and it was awesome she was so willing to do so. I had so much fun in Beijing with her. I mean really! I got so much more shopping done with them and got a lot more souvenirs. Man and did they know how to bargain. (JOdi and Jess were also lovingly refered to as "The twins" or "The blondes").

Jess

Jess was so shy, but so nice. YOu seriously couldn't meet a nicer girl anywhere even if you tried. I remember how sweet you were because you didn't want to yell at the kids! But ya know sometimes it was necessary and you were so loved by the kids. I was jealous that they all wanted to play with you all the time. It was so cute. I was dragged around Beijing by you, but I don't regret it. I saw so much more than I was planning on and I thank you for that.

Sunny Jim

Roomy! Ya know....she never did her dishes. NO JK Sunny was a really good roommate. We both had some hard times in China and we were there for each other all of those times. It would have been hard to do this trip without her there to help me. (Don't think I forgot that hug you gave me) Seriously Sunny I know I say you weren't a good roommate but I couldn't have done this China experience without you. You went to the store with me, you went downtown with me, you went anywhere and everywhere. Thanks roomy! Golfcart! I'll save you.

Luis and Conrad

No I am not his mom. I happened to have the same first name as your mom and look like her and be going into the same career, but I'm not your mom. Although thanks for the nickname... kinda. Your brothers were so fun to be in China with. Seriously though Luis...FREAKIN HILARIOUS. And Conrad! your freaking hand gestures have travelled from Chnia to here now. That's not funny. I freaking do your expressions a lot.

Aaron

Aaron you were so good with the kids and you were always doing your lesson plans so early just like me! You were very good at picking up the language and you helped us get around and you were such a gentleman. I hope your business is going well and that you are enjoying life.

Bekah

Man Bekah and I had some pretty funny pictures. YOu are so short, but I mean that in the best of ways. I loved hanging out with you all the time. I mean seriously even though I was dead tired in Beijing from being dragged around from you and Jess I think that in the Temple of Heaven and such I had some of the best moments in my whole trips history.

Megan

The only one of us to go to school while we were teaching school in China. Seriously amazing. Her awkward moments just made her so much more funny. I loved hanging out with her. she picked up on the language really well and had to go to Mcdonalds once a week to get her icecream fix which is so funny. I mean in China and her favorite thing is icecream...wait....ya that sounds about right.

Azure

Even though Azure went home early with a parasite she was still my roommate and amazing. Azure was the second one in our group who spoke Chinese. I watched some Ally mcbeal thanks to you and I was able to talk with my boyfriend a lot more because you let me use your charger. I will always be so grateful of that. It sucks that your camera broke at the Terra Cotta Warriors though. I hope things are going well for you.

Nic

Well Nic you were so strict with those kids they put you on TV. You also really liked going off by yourself to karate and you got really good at it as well as knowing the language. It sucks you got sent home and didn't get to say goodbye to your kids though. I know they missed you. Hopefully you can go see them again. Ok back to the stories.

Ya I bought just that many movies. At a dollar a pop ya know I couldn't resist.

Eric. Need I say more. This kid was just always rolling around on the floor and such. FUnny kid though. I do miss him.

For the dragonboat festival we got learn how to make these things. They were basically rice (whodathunkit) wrapped in a leaf.

Me, Jodi and Jess about to eat them. Just kidding. They weren't cooked or anything.
Jodi and Jess were so sweet. They got me a gift for up to 9 days before my birthday. It made my birthday totally awesome.

Chinas sweet treats. Their cakes are so delicious.

Henry in his outfit for the performance. We had so many practices. They are really strict in China about what they show the parents. It has to be perfect and it's even better if there's white people in it.

This was right before the final performance. Me, Katie, Jess, Bekah, and Megan all were performing the funky chicken so we got some chickens painted on our faces courtesy of katie. The girls who we performed with were Bekah and Megans kids. and they were such brats! I remember always wanting to punch them.

Literally ten minutes before it started the headmaster told us we had to have something on our heads. These dorky things were born. You have to remember that I was heading to Beijing this very same day and didn't really care very much to be sitting there. My plane was leaving in a few hours I was stoked.

Us finally on stage. Man it was so bright and they stuck a mic right in front of my face so I started laughing cuz I sure as heck didn't want to be louder than everone else. We got on a plane after much confusion on how to get to our travel agency place. They finally figured it out for us and we got a taxi then hopped on a bus to the airport. A few of us got to leave a day earlier because we got special permission and got our tickets afterwards which others had already ordered theirs. I went with Bekah and Jess. When we got there we couldn't figure out where we were for the life of us. We just got off the subway and didn't know where to go. We showed three taxis, I think, the address and none of them would take us there so we figured it was far away. Finally we got someone who said they would take us for one hundred yuan! hahahah bull! The book we had said it was a ten dollar cab ride so we were like. I'm good thanks. We ended up just walking and finally found someone who knew where it was. It was within walking distance and when we turned on the street this building just made me laugh

Ya make sure your kids don't go next door. ahhaahha and that icecream shop didn't even have icecream. Stupid.

This was our hostel. It was very nice.

Naturally it started raining on our first day there. But hey who cares it's freakin beijing. bekah and me.

the entrance to tiananmen square and the forbidden city!
First thing you see when you walk in. Tiananmen square was nothing like what I was expecting. It was basically just inside of a courtyard and it wasn't very big.

The entrance and my ticket to the forbidden city. I couldn't even believe it. We were supposed to meet up with Luis, conrad, sunny, victoria and jennifer so me bekah and jess just leaned against this pole and I am not kidding we started counting how many took our photos people were asking us for and if I remember correctly we had twenty five in ten minutes. They get a lot more courageous when you are standing in one spot as opposed to actually moving around. It was hilarious. Oh and some would try and be sneaky about it, but we would just point to them so they knew we could see them.

Me and Jess were the two tallest girls and Bekah was the shortest so it made for a very interesting picture. I had so much fun with these two in Beijing.

There ya go!

This is the forbidden city. It was a lot different than what I thought it would be like. Basically all the buildings to me looked the same to be honest, but they were still cool. It was like a huge maze and it was great because we had the best time laughing about getting stuck in there somewhere or something like that. And Bekah took a piece of the ground. hahahha we were all laughing that she would get arrested.

Ya in front of the first piece of the forbidden city.

A bridge you say.

On the way to the second door area.

My partners in crime.

Pretty sweet huh.

It's a dragurtle!

Oh ya! That's old stuff that I have touched.. . That millions else have touched...
What lawn?

OH no! It's got me captain!

Don't we look so enthusiastic. Probably like ten people just staring at us right now.

cool quote and me standing in front of the sign.

ATTACK!

Jess is basically awesome.

I'm singing in the forbidden city oh just singing in the forbidden city!
So these doors have nine knobs horizontal and vertically. It was a good luck thing I'm sure, but I don't quite remember why.

We thought we paid to go to the top of a guard tower, but we were wrong, this was still a good view though. Across the street is Mao's grave basically. I don't remember what the big open space was called though. When I first got there I thought it was Tiananmen square.

I just thought that the picture looked cool with the flags in it.

This was the place where Mao was buried. Atually at this place I think we had another five people ask for our pictures. They freakin love the white skin. The guy taking the picture actually took two. He didn't believe that he had taken it the first time. I was like... no, really ya did!

At an underground market we found this food court. This food was really good. I have no complaints about it. This is the area where the Tiananmen incident actually happened. With the tank. I can't believe I was actually in that same place. It's amazing.

The famous pearl street market. I got my knock off converse shoes there and Jess got the cutest bag I've ever seen. I wanted it, but I'm a baby and couldn't bring myself to spend money.

I bet you didn't know they rated toilets.

I was so tired by the Temple of Heaven, by this point I seriously sat whenever I could.

We are so gangsta.

Look I have no legs and Bekah is taller than me.

Yup

Alright so see the people in the background all staring at me? Ya. Well this spot is a magical spot. It's in the very middle of a circle surrounded my even numbers of circles and things and if you stand in it it's supposed to be just special. So everyone naturally wanted pictures on it. I kinda had to keep going then backing up because people wouldn't let me in so I started eventually just creeping closer and closer not noticing that everyone was staring at me while I was doing it. I mean I was like ninja-ing it alright. I looked so stupid. So finally people just cleared a path and let me in. It was a very awkward five second picture.

Man we were so delusional by this point that we were making jokes about Bekah getting us lost in a bear infested area.

Now they only have 999 flowers. Muahhahahah Bekah's picture was funnier. I'll have to get it from her.

See the great wall. That was my first site of it. It's on top of the mountain. I totally thought it'd be a lot more hidden than that.

Me on the tram up to the Great Wall! The girl I'm sitting next to is there writing a paper on woman in business.

And there she is.

It's so long. It is a lot different than in Mulan though. The guard stations are actually really close together not far apart like in the movie. I honestly couldn't even believe that I was up there for awhile.

Another

Touching the GREAT WALL OF CHINA

We were in a pretty touristy part of the wall so you can tell it's been a little rebuilt, but still awesome.

See the white? That's where it's been touched up.

Inside one of the guard towers.

See how excited I was to be on the great wall.

My favorite picture of the great wall moments.

Ya this wasn't scary at all.

Another good view of the wall and how long it is.

Yay for being crooked. Basically the stairs on the great wall are extremely uneven so you can take a huge step then a teeny step.

We were the only three from our group on this part of the wall.

Oh and we got to tobogan on the way down! That was a blast for sure.

Jodi and Jess got some cool rice hats for their parents.

That night a couple of us went to an acrobatic show. Let me just tell you... you have not seen an acrobatic show until you have seen a chinese acrobatic show. We weren't allowed to take pictures of it unfortunately, but we saw the most amazing things ever; ten girls on one bike making a pyramid, little kids on pogo sticks on their arms bouncing on the tiniest ledge, uh uh, crap. I don't remember any more! But it was amazing. After I got out I was so happy I had gone.

At the summer palace.

They have these everywhere. Apparently there is a male and female and they are opposites. I believe they are called foo dogs.

So The winds were so bad that day that the boats people were renting were all being pushed to the sides so they basically had to go rescue all the people out of the boats. Everyone, including me, was watching in awe.

Figures men would be watching sports.

These bridges were unbelievably steep. You get to the top and look down and just think. . . well there I go.

There were so many lilypads.

On the way to see the Olympic sites. Basically we got a cab, but even though there was a long line of cabs they would only let us take this one in the front. We soon found out why. It cost us one hundred yuan. That's a lot by the by. We were watching it go up and realized how screwed we were. Oh well.

There's the birds nest you guys. Where the opening ceremonies were held.

A cool statue by the place where the olympics were held.

If she can be stuck up then so can I!

Hey Hey Michael Phelps was in there. That's the outside of the water cube.

We paid to go inside of it and it was pretty awesome I won't lie to you.

Video of where Michael Phelps swam And that's where he swam.

Some cool bubble things.

I believe it.

These olympic guys were seriously the cutest things I've ever seen.

That's where the torch was kept lit.

I always knew that grass smiled. I knew it. :)

Me and Jodi on our last night in Beijing. Just doing some shopping, looking for scorpions.

Oh yes they are alive before you eat them. That stick is 10 yuan which is by the way about a dollar fifty.

Then there's the cockroaches, grasshoppers, crickets, worms, whatever, they were all gross looking.

I love this picture. Even though the scorpion looks like it's going up my nose. This was right before I was about to eat it.

See the guy behind me, he kept scaring me. I'll have to get the video from Jodi or Jess and post it.

My face right after I ate the scorpion. It literally wasn't that bad. It tasted like chicken. I'm not kidding either. You take two bites and it's fine. The hardest part is making yourself eat it.

Apparently they didn't hear me say we were opening our mouths to show we had eaten it.

This is snake... or dog.... I don't remember. Either way . . .It was gross.

They make these look so good, but they are so gross.

We finally ran into Sunny's group by sheer coincidence on our last night.

The two groups converging.

We had to go to the other schools spectacle and then we had to perform a song and a few of us sing the funky chicken again and they told us we had to wear makeup. Like literally a necessity.

Jeanettes sister Debbie. She was a head teacher too. It was her spectacle program.
The other school had to perform Kung fu in front of all the people standing outside. You have to realize this was at the bai jia which is like our walmart and it had a mcdonalds. It was always busy and white people draw a crowd.

Before class

After class.

Gotta love em.

Thomas. I loved this kid. He was so bad all the time, but if you were nice, he'd be nice back.

Beil and Selena. Selena was so freakin short.

We made Nigel lead the class because he knew the baby shark song. This is my home room and Katies home room combined because that's how it worked out.

My E.L.E. class. Basically they are so little and they just sit there and punch each other, but I won't lie they are so cute. I have a video of them doing the princess pat that is so funny.

Jackie! Such a cute kid.

Naturally Michael would do that.

Look Henry gave me a cute hug like he cares.

Sammy. He was the biggest of the kids, and without a doubt the nicest.

This was my homeroom and Katies. I spent the most time with them because they were doing the performance with us. I loved them all. In the middle is May who was our chinese teacher. She would help keep the kids under control if we needed her and she was a good friend. I ate with her family and they were awesome. I hope I get to see her again.

Just to let you know. . . It is very difficult to hold a squirming child like this.
Look my mean face. That was about all the authority I had. . . none.

These two could kick anyones butt. Shelly was the one girl who seriously dominated in kung fu.

Our last outing we went to Guangzhou to see the circus and go to the zoo. Again their zoos are so awesome. Literally their animals are always moving and playing.It was raining so bad though. It sucked, but since umbrellas ended up doing up no good we just walked around without them causing more of a scene than intended. Here's a cute elephant playing in the water.

This lion was so cute. I felt really bad for him though cuz he was very sedated. I mean they kinda have to when you have people holding him all day. He was so soft though. I loved it.

It's a freakin kangaroo! Just hopping around. I mean really our zoos are not that cool.

Here is the white tiger, which is what we were initially wanting to hold, but our lion was just as cute. They just have these animals walking around. It's freakin amazing.

Oh and you can feed the giraffes! How totally cool is that? Katie has the rest of my pictures from the zoo unfortunately. I've got pictures of the tigers. They are so big you wouldn't even believe.

Here is right before the circus.

The group of us that went to the circus.

This was an international circus so there were people from everywhere performing in it. This guy was just dancing around the front of the seats and stuff in between acts.

This guy was lifting a girl through a loop as they lifted them into the air.

And this trick of course. Man the girl in the middle has got some great cardio.

Our movie day the last day of class. We watched Mulan.

Me, Katie, and Sunny went and got fake nails a couple days before we left so we could say we actually got our nails done.

This was goodbye for the kindergarten. I cried and they weren't even my kids. It didn't help that Jodi and Jess were balling.

Me with our coordinators Mary and Gloria.

Getting Sky's uniform on.

I think I was getting mad at Shelly cuz she kept knocking hers off and we were on a time crunch.

Me and Katies kids all ready to perform! Don't you like their shark fins.

They all had lines to say and they did it so well. I was so proud of them. They sang the song so perfect too. It was awesome to see all of our hard work paying off.
Singing the baby shark song.

Beil sang this song so great. I wish I had the video! I almost died. She would scream it out loud. I'll see if I can get the video from Luis.

This is me handing out my gifts to my kids. I basically just took pictures with each of them and then printed them out and gave them a note saying how much I'd miss them.

Me and May saying our goodbyes.

He was crying, and I thought it was because we were leavin but it as because his mom didn't come to the performance. So ya. That made me feel special.

Man I miss this kid. He's just so cute.

Belle was my one of my favorite girls. She is really sweet.

Wow. Now this was a step for sure! HE actually wanted a hug.

Derek was for sure way cute, he was a hassle, but I miss him none the less.

She gave me a full on hug. Like full one. So sweet.

Tony wanted a hug too. We were sitting in class with them for a second while they got their tests back and he came and said goodbye to me.

Cute little Wendy.

Sorry the pic was a little overexposed. I just really thought his face was funny in this.

I always worried that I would drop the kids when they did this because they like to jump hard but I never did.

You know what was funny was that none of the kids actually seemed that sad about any of us leaving. I mean some were sad, but I think they thought we were coming back or something. This was my last goodbye to Vivian.

Freaking Jeanette! LOVE HER. she ws chasing Gloria and when Gloria finally stopped and looked at her this was the face she did. Jeanette had the best faces on the planet.

This is Gloria being totally scared when Jeanette caught up to her.

Me and Jeanette posing at a final dinner and Candice being all creepy in the background. She was at our school for the last weeks of school.

Yay for Katie and Kylee!

Ya know if this was anyone other than Katie I would be suprised there was an eye on her tongue.

The last time on the cool escalators.

Me and Sunny on our way home! Well that's it. Ya know I came back fifty pounds lighter and I understand and love the Chinese culture so much more. I had a great time and I discovered that I wanted to do something with children after teaching for five months. I'm still with Kim and here's a pic of one of our first days back together.

happy days! Final pics:

Me and Sunny before

Me and Sunny after

China hates Blogspot.

2009-05-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

Just to let anyone know who is following this blog, China has decided to block Blogspot so Beth won't be able to update her blog until she gets home (which is relatively soon, all things considered.) She can still be contacted through e-mail and facebook as far as I know. BUMMER. Lame. See ya!

Xi'an!!!!!!!! Loved it

2009-05-06T22:52:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a long post. Ok so I just recently from May 1-6 went to Xi'an! This was my second favorite vacation. I had so much fun! We live a 27 hour train ride away from Xi'an and that kinda sucked, but so worth it.

Our adventure started at 6 am. I nearly died. This is me sleeping on the bus. Well not really as I couldn't sleep so this is totally set up. . . as the smile gives away. Just to let everyone know. Whenever we go on vacation it's a process. We have to take our Kaiyin bus to the bank of china then walk to the bus station and take a two hour bus ride to the train station. So it's long.

Me and Katie slept on the top bunk. This was not air conditioned and most of us were sprawled out as much as we could to stay cool. I mean literally. . .sweat all over my pillow. I'll tell ya the story in a minute about the fan.

Katie can contort her body to the oddest shapes. This looked so painful to me. This was seriously how low the ceiling was. Needless to say. . . I laid down the entire 27hours.

Me and Katie being weird on the bunk. See how red our faces are. UGH.

Ha ok I lied. I got down and took some pictures. I stuck my hand outside the train and took a picture.

Ok! Story of the train ride. Leave it to me that if I can fall I sure will. So after about four hours I was so hot that I decided to get down and try and figure out the fan that was by our bed. I tried to ask the chinese people below us, but they weren't very nice. I mean literally at the start of the train I dropped my camera case and the girl picked it up and looked at it then dropped it on the floor and kicked it under her bed. So needless to say she wasn't very helpful. Anyways, I was getting down and sunny and aarons bed were below me so I can step on theirs but as I went to stand on the step instead of the chinese peoples bed I missed the step. . . and just fell hahaha. It's funny now but it hurt, because my arms were straight up and this is the bruise I achieved. I had it on both arms. Good times. I did figure out how to work the fan by asking someone else though and ba bam the rest was so much more enjoyable.

I stuck my hand out the window and bam took a picture.

This what the beds look like. They are not fun to get on top of I'm not gonna lie.
So this was in our hostel. They allow us to write on the wall and I left my mark. Our hostel though was seriously amazing! So authentic.

This was a picture in the hostel. I can't even express how cool it was.

Me in front of the hostel door.

Me in front of "The bell tower". This place we were gonna go to the top of, but we didn't have a lot of time in Xi'an.

This is the wall. This was just outside our hostel. So basically our hostel was very well placed.

Me, Sunny, and Katie. I don't remember where this was. I think it was right before Terra Cotta Warriors.

So before the Terra Cotta Warriors we went to the Banpo museum. It's a village they discovered that is 6000 years old. It was kind of hard to see the buildings and things some time, but for the most part it was cool because there was pots and bones also.

This was a building I'm pretty sure. I am so bad at telling what they are.

These were males that had been buried. They actually allow the women to be buried with items more than men. Also they way they are facing is important. Some were buried upside down which was a huge insult.

This was in the end of the tour. It's just made of jade. They bring us to these places with jade items that are like 20,000 yuan! It's a waste of time really.

Katie's creepy eyes! hahah she is seriously so funny.

This is me at the ancient kiln. Boo yah! I'm a terra cotta warrior.

bust or pound. I don't even know. That's pathetic ahah.

This lady is making replicas of the warriors.

Tons of warriors in the oven. I don't think they sell these. They are just for display.

UH. . . me

This is right before you enter the terra cotta warriors. Now two things that suprised me, I figured the warriors would be out in the middle of nowhere as they would want to excavate more, but it's in a city basically. The second one is that they are above ground for the most part. I thought we'd have to go underground, but oh no.

Yay! First image of the warriors. So basically, they are white. I mean from all the pictures I'd seen I expected them to be darker. History lesson now. They were found by a man digging a well in 1974. They are normally colored, but the second they were exposed to air they lost color. So there are more of them, but the government is refusing to open them because they need the technology to open it first. There are three pits. The first one is seen here, it's the largest of all of them and has the most warriors. The warriors were for some guy. hahah I don't remember his name Qin something. He basically was selfish and wanted 800 men to be buried alive with him, but then someone suggested these warriors to him and he agreed. His tomb we saw as well, but there are so many boobytraps in it that they haven't opened it. That and the government won't let them. So his tomb is basically just a mountain.

Me in front of the terra cotta warriors.

Another view of the warrriors.

Horses.

Broken ones. It takes about a year to put one soldier back together and these are all crushed and won't be put back together.

Another picture.

Me and Sunny still in pit 1.

A side view of the warriors.

More horses. I thought the horses were amazing.

So this was behind all the original warriors. They were all broken and I think they are the ones they are going to try and fix.

So close yet so far...

This was over by all the broken ones. More horses!

Ok so this was outside of pit 1 and I was standing up and just going to do a downwards looking picture and these two hooligans jumped on me. I almost fell over hahah.

THIS WAS THE BEST MOMENT EVER! Ok so we were listening to our tour guide talk about the next pit we were going into and I just randomly decided to do a picture of me poking her in the face. She looks so angry, but she wasn't. I don't know why but the face is priceless.

This is in pit 3 ( we went in a weird order). This pit was apparently designed to guard the guy you will see in a second. Notice how instead of standing in lines they are all standing towards each other? That is how they figured it out.

They're guarding this guy. Woot woot to the horses.

Just a better view of him and the horses.

Even another picture. haah I don't know. I went through all these last night. This just shows the guards too I guess. Pit 3 is very very small.

Me in pit 3.

This is pit 2 and it is still being excavated. For the most part they have found the most famous of all the warriors in this room, but the rest is empty. They also have a fourth pit but nothing was in it so they filled it back up.

Ok now I don't remember what they all are. I think this guy is a general ( you can tell by the knot of hair). If it is he still has a little color on him, but I forgot to look.

The kneeling archer!

Me chillin with the archer. He was the best intact one they have found.

Alright, me with the general I'm assuming.

Another one. All these guys in glass are the best ones they have found.

A man and his horse.

I love this picture. We are being the fighting archer? I think. I made Katie do it with me cuz I was so embarrassed. Her pose is very good as she takes kung fu.

You can't really see me, but I'm on the stairs. This was another building after the warriors were all done. Basically these are meant to look like puppets. They did it for the olympics and they are huge.

See I barely come up to his knee.

This was in a museum after too. Just some more replicas of the chariots though, cuz they didn't find a lot of those.

Driving in Xi'an. . . I feared for my life. I saw four car accidents in the two days we were out! That's more than my entire time in China! Insane.

The entrance to the goose pagoda.

Me and Katie in a buggy. Ok so they have these guys that attach a little cart to the back of a scooter and they act as a taxi. We had to get to the goose pagoda and all of us couldn't find a taxi so we rented these. Sunny, Luis, Jennifer, and Victoria got in one and me and Katie got in this one. They are scary because they drive where they want when they want. One time we were going up a little hill and he couldn't carry the weight of all three of us so we got out and pushed a bit. That was funny. Then he started going really slow and we asked if he wanted us to push again and he said no. He stopped next to someone else and kicked us out because his bike had died! So he dropped us off with another guy and he took us there. This is a must try in China though becuase they are fun to ride in I won't lie.

Me in front of the goose pagoda.

Part of the fountain and light show. This was awesome because they had like ten separate pools of fountains. So you could see all the way down.

The fountain show.

Oh so. . . there is heaven on earth!!!! Ya that's right! Freaking american icecream too. No china icecream. I was in heaven and wish I would have had breakfast, lunch, and dinner there.

Ya this is my scary face when I got the icecream. I will have to update more photos from this night later because my camera died so that's all I have from that night.

This is the next day. We went to the panda reserve. This was the first panda we saw. He was separate because he was sick.

This is the second panda. He is also sick. Cute though right!

A golden monkey! haah they're hands are so weird lookin.

Le baby pandas!!! There are two of them.

The two pandas again.
Ok I'm posting this uncompleted because I don't have access to a computer at the moment. I'll post the rest as soon as I can.

Teaching and the kids and Zuhai!

2009-04-24T01:22:00.000-07:00

Hey. I thought I'd just do a quick little update on teaching and the kids. I still haven't quite gotten the hang of teaching. I can do it all in my head, but when I get into the actual room it becomes that much harder.

This is Wendy. She loves getting her picture taken, but she only looks that innocent. She really is kind of a trouble maker.

These are some of my kids. I'm standing inside my room hiding from them. Libby is the one with her hand pointing downwards. She tends to not listen, but she speaks very well.

I let Cici take a picture of me. heeh.

Me and Cici. She actually never listens, but this one day I got her to take a pic with me.

This is my homeroom after my kitchen lesson. They of course all listen when they know they get food at the end. That's Michael in the front.

Me and Gloria, she is our coordinator.

This is what my hair looks like after I sleep on it wet. hahah I think it looks funny.

This bird that you can hear in the background is so annoying. I swear he is right outside our room every night. I have had to start sleeeing with freakin headphones in and I wish he would fly away.

Me and May. We went to her house for dinner one night. She is the teacher of the first grade students when I'm not running around with them. She's way nice and gave me a new chinese name. Jinzhi. or something. I forgot. hahah. It means gold branch though.

As you all might know. My roommate Azure went home sick. We now know that she had a parasite so it's a good thing she went home when she did. This is me and her right before she left. They woke her up four hours before she had to leave, luckily we had packed everything the night before.

This is right as Azure was leaving. I took a picture of everyone I had just woken up to say goodbye.

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY! hahah This is my head teacher Jeanette. We went to pizza hut. Delcious by the way. She is so funny and I have so many expressions I have picked up from her already. You are all gonna be like. . . what?

Some of my kids will put their feet up and from inside the window I go over and undo all their velcro. They think it's so funny. They really can't tie shoes though. Blue can, but no one else.

Uh. A random picture of me. Look at the curly cue/que. I don't know the spelling. hehe.

This is my back after my freakin burn started peeling. My back still isn't healed. Like it itches, but it's not dry. It's quite annoying.

Me, Sunny, Katie, and Bekah about to leave for Zuhai! It's so early. This was just today for me.

This was all of us at Mr. Pizza. Party!

This is something I saw on Emily's blog and I knew when I came to China I had to do it. Now I can say I have. These bubbles float on the water and you basically just run around in them. They are so hard to stand up in though. Like half of the time I was totally laying down. I did somersaults and tried to run! It was so much freaking fun. I seriously am so glad I got to do it. This is me about to get in.

Me actually in the bubble about to commence in great fun!

Me, Seantay, Katie, and Michael are all in this one bubble. I literally had all of them on top of me at one time. I was all ahhhhh get offf!

All of us in the bubble still. I think I'm on the bottom and I swear about to fall out cuz all the weight was in one side of the bubble.

My hair after ze bubble. Chaos.

I didn't know it was zoomed in and then Kate just randomly was in the background and I thought it was funny.

I thought this pole was cute cuz it had a heart on it and then there was Jeanette performing alittle singing in the rain with me hahaha.

The fishing lady. She is the most famous statue in Zuhai. It's in the water and is very pretty.

Me trying to act like the statue. heheh.

This was after the fishing lady. We found some random tiger statues and you know we had to take pictures. Me, Jeanette, Debbie, Katie, and Seantay. Debbie and Jeanette are sisters. From Debbie back is another school, but they live next door hahah.

Michael, jeanette and me. hahahah Michael was taught I believe by Jeanette and that's how they know each other.

Me being a tiger. GRRR.

Me kissing the tiger.

Me and Debbie licking our lips like the tiger.

Administratio???? and a friendship Kiosk. I just thought that was hilarious. And I guess you are cuckoo if you go in that garden.

Me, Jeanette and Sunny. This was right after ze bubble.

Sanya!

2009-04-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

Alright so I'm sure you've all heard about my Sanya trip... if not be prepared. So we left on Friday and we took a bus to Guangzhou and then made our way to the train station! I have to say though that the train station was seriously so crowded, there were people everywhere.

This is the train station in Guangzhou.

This is me and sunny at the train station. I just thought my eyes looked creepy haha.
We got on the train and sat in our seats and they were actually pretty comfortable. However, for a 16 hour train ride. . . not so much of a good idea. A couple of us didn't get a table or a window to lean on so we didn't fall asleep and we really didn't have anything to do honestly.

This is me, katelin, and katie. We were all wde awake. This must have been at about three am.

This is how we passed the time. I felt so left out, my toes wouldn't spread apart!!!

This was after the train ride. It was our first site of Sanya! It was so hot there. We seriously all got off the train and were all drenched...again.
So we got on a bus ride to go find our hostel and it was a long ride, but we eventually found it and may I say! Nicest hostel ever! They had IKEA mattresses! We were seriously all in heaven. We got so lucky. Our room was also constantly air conditioned and it was only a five minute walk away from the beach.

Me and Katie about to head to the beach!

Here is the beach we spent all our time on. It was very nice and clean. I lurved it.

Ok so now I can officially say that I have been swimming in the South China Sea! How cool is that! Awesome. See this wave coming up behind Jennifer and I. . . ya it's about to beat our butts. When you sit that close to the shore and the waves break that close it's basically like being thrown around and there's nothing you can do about it really. But hey! It still rocked. I won't lie.

Me and Katelin buried Jennifer in the sand. Fun stuff.

These people were at our hostel with us. I know the people in my group but I don't really know all of them. I'm gonna try though. Ok so starting on the right. Alex (Israel), Katherine (Germany), her friend is also next to her hiding I guess, Luis, Alexis, Aaron, Conrad, Victoria, Brendan (Australia), Katie, and Sunny. I took the picture. Oh and this was at the Rainbow Bar. This place had the best American food I've eaten since I've been here. So delicious.

Me, Katie and Sunny enjoying the night in Sanya.
Ok so then the second day is when we went to the beach again. I saw the alligator man!!! He was awesome. He let me get more than one picture with the alligator so I'm going to post more than one.

This is when I first held him without letting him pose me. Cute guy huh.

Another shot with the alligator.

Poor upsidedown alligator!

Further away shot I guess.

Poor alligator. He's scarred for life now.

This is my favorite picture with the alligator.
Alright, however; after this I was in the water all day! I got so sunburned. I noticed it though.

So I started taking pictures like this. hahaha.

Me, Victoria and sunny.

It hurt like a mother. I was fine when it first happened actually. As the night started moving on I started to feel sick. I went to get icecream with the group and ended up going back to the room because I wasn't feeling well. I laid a cloth on my face and felt a little better. We went to eat at the Rainbow Bar again and I threw up that delicious icecream. So then I ordered food ate about four fries and threw it up again. Needless to say I was in for the night. I threw up again once more that night. Then just gave up on eating. I know you're supposed to drink water and don't worry I did, but I also didn't feel like throwing up more. I had two awesome people come back and I would like to thank them, Katie and Aaron stayed at the hostel with me. I mean Katie also got just as burned though. We both got blisters. I was just the only one getting sick. How fun, but no really they were awesome and I appreciate them coming home to help me.

This is what I looked like the next morning. My freaking eye was swollen! Hhahah it's funny now, but at the time I was all, 'I'm a good person.' haha, I hurt that day, but hey ya know I'm still in China right. I went and got some aloe vera that, by the by cost 200 yuan, and put some on my face. It immediately felt better I won't lie.
We had decided to go to Monkey Island today. I didn't really want to miss out on anything since I was on vacation and I thought I'd be fun so I decided to go.

We had to take a cable car to the top of the island and this was me on the cable car. So far so good again.

Here are some of the monkeys. They were actualy really cool. They weren't chained up so they would just randomly come over and be really close to you. However, apparently if you have heat stroke it's extremely stupid to go out in the sun, so even with my umbrella I started getting sick again. Again I had to sit down, but people stayed with me again cuz they rock like that.

There was this show playing and what you do is hold up a yuan and the bird will fly to you and take the money and you can get a picture so I did. Yoink like that. I was the only one who did it. Although Sunny and Adam decided to try to but they only put up a jiao and wa bam the bird didn't take it. It was hilarious we kid you not. Anyways I started getting really sick so my pictures slowed down so sorry about that.
Anyways I decided to stay and watch the show cuz I wasn't feeling well and some stayed with me and it was pretty cool.

Yes this is a goat walking a tight rope. OK OK so it's not a tight rope, but it's about the size of a 2x4 it is sad to look at but it was awesome. He turned arond and also stood on the part in the middle. After the show got over I threw up again and then as if I'm not cool enough for throwing up in front of people I fell flat to my knees and bloodied one up. I was all really!!!! Come on!!!!!

Me and Victoria at dinner later that night. Mind you I didn't eat just got it to go. I didn't think that'd be fun to throw up again.
This was our final night. I realized I hadn't gotten anything to remind me of Sanya, although I had mixed feelings about it at that moment, so I did some quick shopping and mostly got some shells. Our train left at midnight and I slept ok because I had a table, but when I woke up I stole Jenifers book and just read it. I finished it ahahah. It was a good book. But ya then on the way home my ear randomly gets clogged! We got all the way home and by then I was so excited to be home it was insane. I went immediately with Mary to get medicine cuz I just wasn't liking the ear being clogged. Not to mention my cold came back with a vengence. So I taught on wednesday, but Thursday Jeanette didn't want me teaching so I stayed home and slept. That sucks cuz now I owe Sunny a day. . . gross. hahaha. I'm still on the medicine for my ear. It hasn't healed yet and my cold is still here, but my face is getting better and the burns don't hurt as bad. I'm slowly but surely getting better. I hope. Hahhaa. I can't say that I had an awful vacation, because it was really only that day and a half, but since then I've been sick too, so obviously I'm not feeling the whole China thing right now. Sorry I didn't have as many pictures though. I do go to Beijing on May 1st though so I'll be better and I'll get tons of pictures. Love you all!

Needless to say this is part of my burn today. The yellow is blisters and the black is dead skin. It's gross.

Yangshuo!

2009-03-19T02:55:00.000-07:00

My first sight

Alright first of all let me say that yangshuo is seriously amazing!!! I would seriously move there. They have mountains jutting out everywhere! Well they are like hills actually, but I will tell the story with pictures instead. Actually that's not working right now. . . so I'll tell the story first. Ok so we get on a sleeper bus around 630.

This was me on the sleeper bus. I got the bottom for fear of falling off. haha

I first saw the beds and was all. . . "I'm gonna have to fold myself in half there's just no way." I mean they are tiny. But the chinese are genius and they make the beds just perfect so you can stick your feet underneath the person ahead of you. Mind you they aren't that comfortable still for people of my height. They are still hard to move in. Anyways. We had a ten hour bus ride ahead of us so we all mostly wanted to sleep even though it was like six. We picked up a few more people and headed out. They had some movies playing, but nothing really good.

Me and Sunny on the bottom bunks.

This was me nearly the entire bus ride. Everyone feels free to smoke whenever they want and it was gross so I slept with it on.

At about nine they stopped for a bathroom break. . . Now you get to hear my first ever squatter story!!!! Ok so we walk down this alleyway and one girl comes out of the bathroom and was all uh by the way there are no doors so we all are like. . . oh come on. We peek in there and sure enough there are these walls about two feet high and you just squat and whatever comes out goes down the little drain into a ditch. I honestly nearly threw up! Twice! But I did it. I mean I'm sure some people saw some stuff they shouldn't have because there are no walls, but I mean they will come into your stall and squat next to you so they obviously don't care.

This was how I felt after using the disgusting squatter for the first time.

I didn't sleep much cuz I had one guys knee in my butt and another guy on the other side of me that kept pushing me. So basically ya. No good. We arrived in Yangshuo at about 530 in the am. Ya let me tell ya we were all like. . . dead. Ha ha. We all wanted nothing more than to sleep. Thomas came from the hostel to meet us outside which was so nice of him and then he didn't really have any rooms open because it was so early and check out wasn't til noon. We met him and decided on a tour we all wanted to do. We all huddled in beds and slept for a couple hours before our bike ride. So here is that.

Me on a bike. We were going on a scenic tour to Moon Hill.

Just one of the views we saw. So pretty.

Me and sunny on the bikes. We had just finished with a quick breakfast consisting of noodles. hahah. yummy.

Beautiful

I know right.

Me at one point on the tour. I think sunny had just fallen off her bike in this one. hahahaahaha. Ask her about it.

Me in front of more mountains.

This is our group! I'm not even going to name everyone. This is right before the mud caves.

Me and Sunny on the way to the mudcaves. She is my favorite.

Check out these klick lass shoes!!!! We bought them just for the mud caves. So cool. They were just making them outside the entrance.

Me and sunny about to enter the cave!!!

This is me in the cave. climbing the mountain of snow. Don't laugh at my shoes.

In the actual mud. This was the weirdest experience. I don't have a lot of pictures, but I did get some souvenir pics that the guys took. It's literally a pool of mud and it was so much fun to play in. I was disgusted, but by the end I was covered. Hence this next picture.

muah hahahahahah MUD

I would not have tgotten so dirty if I had known that right after we would have to get all the mud off in freezing water. This is after. But once we got it all off we got to go sit in hot springs. So SWEET. Oh this is after our cold shower!!!

See the little hole... that's moon hill. I didn't hike it cuz my clothes were wet. I basically just shopped, which i was content with.

The next day we went to a rice paddy field and I don't remember the name, but basically it was so high. This was the view. We had to climb so many stairs to get to the top. By the end I was all that wasn't fair hahaha.

Me on a drawbridge! This was the entrance to the village of the long haired ladies.

This was a long haired lady. their hair is up to two meters long and they tie it up. If they pinch you and you pinch them back you are married to them so we were all paranoid of pinches the entire time.

Me at the top. This was about halfway up the second half of the hike. I stopped going up because I wanted to shop and someone came down and was all there's still twenty minutes left so I was all. . . uh no thanks.

Ok so notice the lines on the road!!! We played chicken with that oncoming bus and totally won. HA it was awesome. Our bus driver did this many many times. We always won though.

We are in front of actual bamboo in this one. It was so funny because Victoria made us pose this way. She loves posing people.

Me on a bamboo raft! I don't remember the name of the river, but this was very relaxing and pretty.

Jess, Me and Megan on the boat.

Another view from the boat. It looks like this everywhere. Including the city. Awesome.

We had a break and got to an island and this was so sad. This lady was peeling the shell off the crab and it killed them. At least we're pretty sure. I was all. . . gee you better eat that whole bucket lady.

Me by the water on the island break from the bamboo raft.

I love this picture. The two girls you don't know are from another school. They are so awesome. It goes Jennifer, me, Sunny, Victoria and Conrad. I was about to fall over. I seriously was being supported by sunny ahha.

Ok so here's an example of how they rip us off. This lady, seen here bargaining with Luis, came over when we got to the island and was all look so we looked and decided we wanted some carved rocks. She told us they were 5 yuan. We were all no and bargained it down to 2, but she said no for 3. So we said ok and then jessica walked over and was all they're getting theirs for 1. So basically we made her give us that price, but she wanted so much more. hahaha.

Me standing at the front of the boat. The entire time I was just praying I wouldn't fall off.

Me hiding in bamboo after the boat ride.

Chicken head anyone? We ordered a chicken hot pot at lunch. Little did we know that they throw the whole chicken in there.

This street is very old. That's all I know.

SCOOTER!!! Need I say freakin more. This was my first time driving in two months. Felt so good. I was riding it and for some reason I was humming Star Wars the entire time. I don't know why.

Me on the scooter. I don't know if I was driving and that's why it's so weird, but it was fun.

Me on a bridge that we saw while on the scooters.

I held a monkey! THis was five yuan! I held it and it pooped on me.

There is no such things as parks! All their parks are exercise equipment. The is me and Bekah on one such thing.

Ok so these bracelets. The point of them is to not come off. We both got one and are in it for the long haul. In order to get them off they must be broken. Sunny's was harder to get on and i'm pretty sure there's no getting hers off, but mine went on fairly easy with the help of a bag. We saw a chinese lady get one and OH MY GOSH. They had to lube her hand up and bend her hand to get it on. So what possessed us to get them I will never know. But now they're on for good.

Me and sunny on the sleeper home. We convinced the driver to watch an american movie and I saw kiss of the dragon. They love Jet Li.

I didn't get any pictures but Yangshuo has a very awesome night life! I mean really. We went into a bar one night and they led us in and everyone started staring at us of course, but then they started playing the macarana! and then they were really staring at us! I mean Katie and Sunny were just full out doing it. I was laughing so hard on the side lines. Two girls did join in though. OH and in Yangshuo there are so many white people. That must sound bad, but seriously I was staring. I felt so bad, but it's amazing. It was like two months of seeing only my group then BAM white people everywhere. We met two boys that had been backpacking since October! Katie fell in love with them hahahahaaha. What else random?! Oh we went to eat American food and we ordered a cheeseburger. When they first brought out two girls it was literally a slice of ham that was grilled !!!! hahahah we about died, but then when ours came it was actually a burger thank god, here is the pic.

However this was the best burger I've had the entire time. So amazing. My mouth is watering now. The burger was teeny.
We were supposed to go to Guilin at one point, but we all liked Yangshuo so much that we didn't even go.

Random boring stuff.

2009-03-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Man I tell ya. . . I can post about anything.

Here's like three out of nine bites that I have accrued. I don't kknow what they are but I know they itch like a mother.

So Sunny went and got her hair cut and in China when you get a haircut it's really like a massage/facial/hair cut. I mean she paid extra for the facial which is what she's getting here, but she said it was heavenly. Cost about $7 for the whole thing.

Here is the mask they put on her while getting a facial. I told her she looked like Hollow Man and she was trying really hard not to laugh.

This is after the hair cut and facial. Her face was bright pink!

This was yesterday. We were cold and waiting for the bus. It's been raining for about a week now I wanna say. It's a little better today, but still very gray. Oh and hey the time change makes you guys only 14 hours behind now! I thought that was cool.

This was the day we were on TV. It was the first grade teachers afterwards had to go take pictures and get recorded while playing some games with the kids. That grass was all sorts of all over me. Katie (the one in glasses), Conrad and Jess (the other girl) are in my group and teach the same group of kids.

This is us playing red rover. The kids are Kathy, Wendy, Emmy, Jess, Vivian, Shereena ( who is not in our grade, but since she's not chinese they wanted her in there), Josephine and me.

This is two in one. This is the weather we've been having and it's our school on fridays and sundays when the parents come to pick up their kids. They don't care where they park it's funny.

We got out of school early one day on account of the fact that the kds had a jump roping contest. This was it. Hard to see anything though.

The rules to driving in China

2009-02-28T18:32:00.000-08:00

Ok so I was bored so I thought I'd give a little update....on nothing.
Ok so here are the rules to driving in china:
1. There are no rules
2. Lights are merely a suggestion
3. The walk signal is merely a suggestion
4. If you are a scooter and the light is red...go on the sidewalk
5. Go whenever and expect people to stop
6. Pedestrians are smaller than a car, feel free to hit them
7. Pass whenever and on whatever side of the road
8. If you don't use your horn you are crazy

hahah there are some basic rules for you.
Here are some jail photos of some of my students.

This is Vivian... obviously. She is one of my favorites everyday she comes up and holds her arms out so I will hold her and she just lays on me. Very cute and love her.

This is "Katie" or Kitty. I have no idea. She answers to both. SHE HATES ME. But it's freaking awesome. She reminds of one of those kids that is a bully. She sticks her tongue out at me and I just smile and laugh. So it's a love hate relationship.

Chris....need I say freaking more. He's a very smart kid, but he's also very loud and doesn't listen.

Ha ok so she hates me because I said her name wrong everyday for about a week. Its sat a la. I said sah tal ah. hahahah She's better now, but she gets annoyed very easily.

Alright so I named her Libby. We could not figure out her name for the life of us. She kept saying Greece, but whenever we wrote it down she said no, so I said ok then you are Libby cuz I have no idea and hate calling you by "Hey you."

Ya she is just that cute. Her name she told us is Minny, but she doesn't answer to anything but Wendy. She's like Vivian. Very cute.

Dude....hellion. I mean his name is Amy and we teased him saying that it was a girls name, but he won't change it. Doesn't listen to anything. But still he's a good kid.

Dude she could take me out. She fights like one of the boys, but when she gets hurt will go mope in the corner.

He is one that Shelly will clash with. He has his good days and his bad days. He will sometimes be the best student and other times he will ignore me and make me lift him up to move.

Everyone loves Selena. I think she just isn't good in my class hahaha. But seriously she is so tiny. You can see how tall she is against the wall compared to everyone else.

The infamous Belle. . . Well she is actually one of my favorite students now. She is well behaved in my class and helps out a lot. It's so funny. STORY TIME! When I first started teaching I would tell the kids to fold their arms and tap my upper arms to show that they're arms need to be touching and now they all look at me and say fold ya arms and tap their arms. That was so not my intention. But ya I like Belle now. We have an understanding.

This kid is the biggest sweetheart! He will always come stand first in line and actually listen to me. He literally pushes people to come stand by me.

This guy doesn't even need English classes. He is in competition with Belle to get the most tokens. They both are the top of the class.

Here is the infamous Michael or Marco. He was good one day, but now still doesn't listen, but I still like him. He just needs love man. I always like the bad students the best because they have their days. Good students are suck ups. JK.

I promise he only looks that cute. . .It's a facade.

Henry, Henry, Oh Henry. He is so bad. Smart, but so mean.

In cahoots with Shelly and Eric. Slightly better behaved, unless Eric isn't, then they band together.

He's really cute, he can hit though so you have to watch him.

Everyday Nicola will come and run down the hall and give us all high fives. Ha that reminds me of a story. We were playing musical chairs (chaos) and Nicola points to a lizard on the floor. I totally thought it was fake and that he had put it there so ignored it. . . then I heard all the kids screaming and turned and it was running across the floor. Hhahahah they were so scared! I laughed and the rest of the class I just had to keep them away from it. Then at the break I caught it. And since all the kids knew that is was in there they told everyone. So when I walked out of the classroom with it in a box they all wanted to see. I totally showed most of them, but then had to get back to class fast so I was booking it to the office. Azure said it was the funniest thing she's ever seen. I turned the corner holding a teeny box and dragging about 20 kids on my back. So I started screaming GET OFF and chris (see pic) was holding onto my shirt so I basically elbowed him and made him get off. That sounds mean, but I didn't hit him, I basically put my arm behind my body and pushed down. Then when I got to the door I slammed it in there face, hid the lizard and went back out. hahah. I named him Skippy, but we had to let him go. He actually got out and I had put him outside and went to get him and he was on my shirt I screamed and was alllll ahhhhhhhhhhhh sunny. Together we caught him then let him go.

This kid is cute but very loud and not good.

She is always the last to fold her arms.

In cahoots with Kitty. Talks too much!

She is really well behaved. She used to get so mad cuz I couldn't tell her apart from Kitty.

Uh well she is good, but also seems to want to cause chaos. Normally folds her arms only when directly told.

He is very good. He talks to Gino a little too much, but one of the best behaved boys. I always used to mix him up with Tom, I don't know where his picture is though.

Ahhie! hahaha she thought her name was with h's. I had to explain to her that they were n's. She's way cute. Although I can not tell her and Emmy apart for the life of me!

Ok so they look different, but I swear in class standing next to each other! Not happening. She's very good too.

She is so nice. She is friends with Annie and Emmy.

He is so quiet. Him and Thomas and Aaron I can't tell apart. And they totally are all friends so it makes it more complicated.

Very quiet and doesn't talk a lot. Cute though.

The last of the three amigos. He is the loudest out of all three.

She always seems so sad, but is a very good kid.

I used to get her confused with Satala, which bugged both of them. She is good, but also not.

Sweetheart. Need I say more.

She basically spends the class lifting up Selena and talking to her.

She is interesting. She's good, but she also is bad. Her name is pronounced Bale. And if you say it wrong she'll let ya know.

He is also another troublemaker. Doesn't listen really.

He is so quiet!

His name is Puppy. hahah I don't know who gave him that name, but sad. I get him mixed up with Nigel. He's ok in class.

She is well behaved. Normally folds arms first.

Talks to Belle too much. Not very talkative without her sitting by her though.

The thing about these kids is that they go to school from 8 am to 8 pm and their teachers are very strict. Most of them live here at the school and they get to go home for the weekend is all. The kids in Kindergarten even stay without their parents.

ELE is hard, but getting better. I have learned they like to see things more than anything. We also have English corner on tuesday night. This is basically where we go talk to kids who know NO english and wow it sucks. I mean I said my name and they of course started to scoot away! I was all I know what it means don't worry. Then there was this kid named Moen and I made fun of his name! hahah I'm so mean, but I'm gonna be a two year old right now and say that he started it.

This is me with all my balloons before the balloon pop game. That was madness.

The weather we've been having. So nice.

This car was by a store by our house. We're pretty sure it doesn't work.

Ok so that's it really. I mean most of the time I just sit at home because I have the weirdest schedule and it doesn't give me a lot of time to do anything much. I'm learning Chinese though and having fun killing cockroaches and catching lizards. Til next time! Oh ya and bed bugs hahaha! I freaked my mom out with that one. We are pretty sure something is in the room next door! She's got monstrous bites and cockroaches. ahahah. I have something on my leg but it's not like bites. I'll keep ya updated on that ahhaha.

He gave me a hug.....A HUG!

2009-02-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

Ok so I don't have any pictures to put up but I just thought I'd let everyone know that there has been a breakthrough with Belle and Michael. Michael actually loves my class. He came up and gave me a hug yesterday when it was time for my class! I was freaking amazed. Now it is not because of my teaching, but in fact because he saw the car I was offering him in store! I so don't care though. It's so much better than him running around not doing anything. Belle actually enjoyed my class yesterday too! I mean granted she was given special treatment! (I was advised to) so that is amazing. I don't actually dread teaching them. I am confident that I will have no voice when I get back as I'm yelling at the top of my lungs 4 out of 7 days of the week. But hey you'll all still love me if I can't talk.....I'm pretty sure at least.

Shenzhen and teaching

2009-02-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

Ok so my last post was awhile ago now so I shall update. First of all China is good. It's extremely humid though. I mean I literally wake up sweating. . . it's quite disgusting. Makes me wanna barf. I am getting used to the staring, mostly because I just stare up at the sky or stare right back. I am so so sick of chinese food. In fact I'm on my lunch break now and decided to skip it just because it's so gross. I've lost a lot of weight... well ok not a lot, but i have like one good pair pof pants that doesn't fall off me anymore. Teaching is a lot harder than I anticipated. I'll get to all that in a second though. Here are some pictures.

This is me, Sunny and our roommate Azure. I think we're about to go into town on this picture.

We went to the Bond school and this was what we ate. It's called a hot pot. They basically just put oil and I think salt in a pot and start it boiling. It's actually pretty good. The food is cooked almost immediately, in the picture, there is mutton in the pot, it wasn't that bad. It really didn't have a lot of flavor. But tasty.

This was the hot pot food before it was cooked. The mutton. The threw potatoes in there and I about died. If you know me...you know I pounced.

This is a really popular street in downtown Zhongshan. We walk on it a lot to get to the park n shop and they have parades on it too.

I can't even begin to describe this pizza to you. It is heaven. The crust is really thin and the sauce is the color of real tomatoes. It cooks in about five minutes and is only five minutes away from our apartment.

Me and sunny went walking and found this little area that had vines covering us and decided to take a picture.

Me and sunny on the bus. We take the bus everywhere... or walk. I suprisingly don't miss my car ....yet.

This is really hard to see, but we went to the Bond school again on the ninth and it was lantern day, which is the end of the New Year celebration and this was the parade we missed. :( It's a dragon, but they were all leaving.

Ok so on lantern day when we went to the school we made dumplings....they were so sick. mom you would have liked them though. They were basically dough. I felt like I was eating playdoh. I ate maybe one. Then we went to McDonalds so it was all good.

This was also lantern day. At Mcdonalds. You can't see ronald cuz gloria is sitting on him, but there was a lot of us enjoying the evening. I can't even see who is all there.

This is my classroom. I put all the desks in the corner so they can't run out. hahaha

This is me in my classroom.
Man oh mally. Ok so the first day wasn't that bad, but oh it so was. I was scared for a good reason man! They are so loud. Me and Jess tried to do an opening together so that we could get the kids names. I was in charge of the names and half of them I couldn't understand. One girl I still don't know her name. She keeps saying Greece but whenever I write it she says that's not it. I have spelled it every way I can. They aren't as bad as you'd think, but try laying a twister board on the floor and then telling them they can't go on it. . . good freaking luck. SO doesn't work. They also have never played Twister I swear. I would turn the spinner and they would all just jump on the color. By the end that was the game... seriously I was all....have fun. Also in one class apparently my name Beth means poopy in chinese so they loved that i tell ya. I didn't have the worse day though. I mean Kylee was crying by the end. They tend to think our chests and stomachs are extremely funny and just run up and grab us so Kylee had one kid who would just not let up. She's doing better now though. My second day I was almost ready to cry. I was playing matching and by the end....I was yelling at them all. It was like a power trip hahahaha which is funny when you think about it. I mean come on....imagine me yelling....hahahahaha it was more like here I'm stronger so I'll pick you up if you don't move. This one kid Michael...He will be the death of me. I had Michael and Belle in the same class and they both suck. Hahhah Michael would act like he was deaf and wouldn't listen to me so his chinese teacher came in and talked to him and said be good. He still wasn't listening. By the end I picked him up put him in the corner and said "If you are not going to participate you are going to stay here until I say you can come out." He kinda stared at me like....and your point is....and I went on with teaching. The funny part is I think he ran out of the classroom. hahahahah I totally wasn't watching him. But I swear he was gone by the end. Oh well have fun. Then Belle would never play anything and if I separated her from her friends would basically look so so bored. We are supposed to put the kids in a Chinese chair if they speak chinese and by the end of my class they were all trying to get into it. . . That's probably my fault cuz I lifted them into it and I'm sure they liked that. Anyways by the end my voice was completely gone. I had none. Oh and then later I figured out that Michael was having stomach problems...naturally. I yell at the sick kid. AND THEN I had to eat chinese food and was near tears! I wanted nothing more than a freaking pint of haagan daaz or a burger, but no...rice and crap. (It still is rice and crap) We actually had pigs blood and chicken feet all in one day... I had pizza. BUT hey then we got a vacation.

Another picture of me in my classroom.

We got to go to Shenzhen. This is an international town. This is where people can go to church if they want. It's actually really nice. Me and Sunny walked around to Conrad and Luis, the other non church goers.

This was an anchor just chillin in the ground ahhaha.

Ok so in Shenzhen is what's called Window of the World. It's basically a themepark that just has a lot of miniature monuments ie the eiffel tower. Here it is.

This was the opening sight.

My friend the dragon.

Ok now this is so sad, but I don't remember what it is. It's something in Italy I think.

HMMMM that looks familiar.

Me and the statue could be twins.

Me on a bridge....obviously.

Did I tell you I visited Stonehenge.

A cooly fountain!

And the white house.... i know i know I travel a lot. Oh and there is a story by this area. K so I walked up to Luis and Sunny and they had to decided to act like they were from London, cuz hey we get stared at anyways. So I said "You sound like you're from London!" From forgetting sarah marshall and this lady came over so fast and started standing next to me, literally pointed and a guy and told him to take a picture...I imagine my face was in shock. She didn't even ask just came and stood next to me. Mind you she didn't grab anyone else, I'm assuming that's cuz I'm the one with the stomach. But I mean I smiled and just stood there like what the .... and then she pulled her friend there and took a picture again. I was all oh my weirdo...... They just thought I was so funny. I wanted to yell YA I EAT FOOD YOU SHOULD TRY IT SOMETIME! as they walked away, but figured since everyone was already staring at me from that little bit I shouldn't. Ha and then I kinda said really loudly...I'm canadian hahah trying to throw everyone off....I don't think it worked. Afterwards I was all....why didn't you guys help me? ya know join in and they said cuz they wanted me to have an awkward moment alone. I was all...super.

These stairs were intensly steep....like....how I didn't fall I will never know.

This was towards the end. Just a pose.

Me in front of the fountain oustide of the entrance. After this we tried to find the second half, but no luck. So we took the metro down to a huge shopping center. I didn't take any pictures...don't ask why. But it's basically five stories and you can get things tailored to you exactly. I got a real jade buddha for about 9 dollars. ahahahah he wanted 125 Yuan but I got it down to 55Yuan muahahahahaahah. suckers. Or maybe I am....I have no iea.haha but it's cool.
Then we took a taxi back to the church. By the way the taxis drive on absolutely no gas... like both times they were below empty. They drive like I do too. Sunny said I'd be super down here.

Sunny, me and Luis in the taxi, his brother is in the front seat.

Me on the bus ride home. Two hours long.
Ok that's it. I'll just throw in a couple random pictures

This is at a little market by our house. It was on valentines day and we took advantage of it.

This was a delicious crepe. We found the store on walking street.

katie, me and azure. all waiting for the bus. hahaha.

Ok everyone. Until next time! Have fun I hope you enjoyed the pics. I'll let you know how teaching goes....dun dun dun.

I figured it out

2009-02-03T03:42:00.000-08:00

AHAHAAH I figured it out right after I posted that.
Here are some pictures

This is Sunny and I finally at the airport. We look ok after a 14 hour flight

This is our tour guide Cecilia. She was funny

These are just some of the apartments in Hong Kong

This is the subway in Hong Kong. Freaking insane....we were shoved in there like pickles, but they were extremely clean.

This is me in front of our first view of Hong Kong city. There were so many people trying to cross the streets. Cars wait for no one.

This was some clothes hanging out of a window. you see it everywhere. Including our apartment

This is me and Jessica at Kowloon Park

A group of us decided to split to go find a parade....From top left to bottom. Conrad, Luis, Megan, Nic, me, Bekah, Katie, Seantay, jennifer, azure (our roommate) and jessica.

This was so funny. We were eating at the spaghetti house and this guy randomly came in and was all you want photo....we were all yes, but had no idea where he had come from. Then the director guy kept telling him to get lower to the ground.....but he could only go so far.

This was the group of us at Spaghetti House. Everyone was watching us and the poor dragon guy was getting so pushed around

This is me and sunny at the highest point in Hong Kong. Victorias peak. It was windy, but a great view

The view from Victorias peak

I was trying to look like the dragon....heehehe didn't work

This is one of two floating restaurants in Hong Kong. It's simply called JUMBO

Ha this was such a funny story. So we took this boat ride for like $55 HKD and this guy was silent the entire ride until all of a sudden he started yelling really loudly, he was only saying stuff like there's this and this but it scared the crap out of us cuz it was so random. Afterwards when I got this picture everyone made fun of me cuz he put his arm on my shoulder. I was all.... He wasn't driving weirdos. He also showed us Jackie Chans boat.

Me and sunny again. I mostly added this one cuz I thought it was funny with the height difference. Ha reminds me of another funny story. We went to McDonalds one morning and she went to sit without me and when I went to sit down I couldn't see her. I finally started walking and she called my name. She totally blended in....I almost died of laughter.

This was inside the Ten Hou Temple...I think. I'll double check the spelling. It's on Stanley Street a really popular market and I wasn't allowed to take pictures I learned.....after taking this.

This was our hotel in Hong Kong. I seriously tried for about twenty minutes to turn on the lights. I had to ask someone...Wanna know the trick? You have to stick the key in a hole right inside the door for it to work. So weird.

Me and sunny chillin like a villian at the hotel.

This is our apartment. In order to get all this luggage up here....we had to trek up four flights of stairs. It sounds easy, but it sucked so bad. We have no escalator....ever. anyways our room is still just as bare.

This is our bathroom. It's actually our shower too. The whole room is the shower. funny stuff. and we have to hold the hose up.

This is our apartment building. Literally across the street from our school.

Guess what you can buy cigarettes in a vending machine. hahahah we almost died

Ok look at this one sideways. This was in downtown zhongshan and we had to climb 273 stairs.... yes I counted cuz it sucked. To let everyone know....teenagers are the same around the world..annoying

This was a random thing downtown. you could totally walk across it and there were millions of coi swimming around and if you held your hand over the pool they would swim towards you cuz they thought they were getting food

this was at the same place.....i wanted to blend in with the wall.

Ok that's all up to date. By the way this took hours! Internet is slow so appreciate it and know that's the last one for a while.

They stare!!!!!!!!

2009-02-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

Ok everyone here is my first blog from China! Well first of all the plane totally wasn't that bad. I slept through most of it. The worst part was the food.....those eggs were powdered I swear. Anyways.... I spent two days in Hong Kong at the Novotel Citygates hotel. It was very nice....only apparently there is just no privacy in China I swear hahaha. Hong Kong is very very Americanized. Everything was in English and nearly everyone spoke English to us, so I got along pretty well there. It looks exactly like the pictures on the internet. VERY crowded! But the buildings are tall and honestly most are apartments. There isn't a whole lot of tall buildings....just apartments. I'll add pictures later but I can't figure out how to and I'm pretty sure i left the software i need at home. So Zhongshan is very much smaller. I live in some beat up apartments, but I'm learning to live how they do I suppose. Everyone stares at us when we walk around. Especially when we are in big groups. We take the bus into town and yes.....there are movies for a dollar and they are still in theaters so ha! I'm honestly clueless on what to say until I can upload my pictures and describe it. Without them you won't really get the big picture.

Oh ya I left the software on the other side of the world

Almost there!

2009-01-13T23:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, so they still haven't bought the plane tickets, but I leave on or within two days of the 28th. Weird huh?!? I can't believe I'm actually getting ready to leave now. It came so freakin fast. I really am getting nervous. I haven't started packing or anything. I just figured out my money so that's way good. I miss my Kims already. I can't believe I won't be able to hold his hand for five months. I'm also gonna miss my family. rest assured my first email to everyone will read......and then i cried and cried. I can already tell. I'm excited cuz Kim promised we can go to Disneyland after I get back and that would be awesome! I've been wanting to go for so long and i mean so long! I'm going to take emily's advice while I'm in China and eat anything and everything i get offered.....sure am bringing those laxatives just like she said as well hahahaahhaha. that will be my second email. hehehe. So ya know my newest story now and I'll keep you updated when I know the actual day i leave! BYE

China

2008-11-22T19:14:00.000-08:00

Ok so I just figured out that I leave January 28th and will be coming back around or on June 23rd! I'm really excited and I'm planning on having a going away party so I can get everyones address and such before I leave. I really am going to miss everyone, but I'm excited to see China. Thanksgiving is going to be way fun this year and I hope everyone else is going to have fun too! Twilight was way good as well. I can't think of much else I need to say.

PICTURES

2008-10-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

me and my sister ali at my graduation
me and sunny jim! who is also in china with me
me attempting to wear makeup
me and my old roommate ashley

me and my kims!!! LOVE YOU. <3

First blog

2008-10-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

Ok this is the blog of Mary Beth...heheh. I decided as I'm about to go to China for six months this would be an easy way to tell everyone the same stories instead of repeating it. I leave in January and return the third week in June. I'm really excited because I get to be there during Chinese New Year and my 21st birthday! I'm going to miss my family and friends, my awesome boyfriend Kim. I'm sad to be leaving everyone for so long, but I know this will be worth it!