and that's why this is worth it.

When I woke up today, I honestly thought, "Ugh. This is going to be the worst day ever."

I was so exhausted from having only have gotten a good 10 hours of sleep within the last three nights that I didn't know how on Earth I was going to make it through the day. But I did what my good ol' mom and dad taught me and I just shook it off and got out of bed.

Everything was uphill from here.

• The lesson I planned to teach my kids today was a very fun one. One that actually had the potential to keep children entertained for longer that 3 seconds. 
• It is Monday. Monday means Flag Ceremony. Flag Ceremony means I don't have time to teach two of the 5 rotations. The two of the five rotations just happen to be the two worst classes for me. So, it worked out nicely.
• I FINALLY GOT MY CAMERA! After one whole month of waiting for it to finally get from America, into my own hands. I cannot even tell you how happy it makes me. Ahh :]
• All of my classes went incredibly well today. I love these little kids more than you will ever know. 
• Wingel (one of my most favorite children on the planet), ran up to me today and grabbed my hand and whispered into my ear, "Teacher come with me." So I followed him to his backpack where he pulled out one of his motorcycle toys and handed it to me. "Teacha, for you from Wingel." He gave me one of his favorite toys. It was so simple, but it made me feel so loved by that little boy!
• I got a deep tissue body massage for about 7 US dollars. It was the second most painful thing I've ever experienced and I'm not even exaggerating. I could have cried through the whole thing. But it was so necessary. My body will thank me in the morning.
• We ran into our kids during their swimming lesson at school....cutest thing ever! Leo was wearing a tiger swimming suit and the best part is...it had a tail on it! It was so adorable. 
• One of our Chinese teachers gave us coupons to a "Spa". A Chinese spa is more like a YMCA or something. But the best part is that it has this huge section where you can get water massages. So you just go to these different stations in the pool and the water shoots out in specific ways that feel amazing. They also had a hot tub but it had ginger, lemon, rosemary, and all sorts of other herbs in it. It smelt so good and I'm sure it's all sorts of healthy. 
• We ran into two of our students and the SPA. Bruce and Emmet. They are twins and they are adorable! 
• Every time I see my kids it makes me so incredibly happy. I wish I could explain it to you...I love them so much. 

It's day's like this that make any of the less fun parts of this Chinese experience totally worth it. 

-Kambrie

Week 4.

Ni Hao!

I always feel awkward trying to start  new blog posts. Usually people are really clever and can say really cool things...not me. So just bare with me.

This last week has been kind of crazy. Last weekend we all got sick. Not deathly sick or anything. We just caught the flu bug that's going around. However, WE ARE IN CHINA and none of us really want to waist our time laying around doing nothing when there is so much to do out there! So we all have just kind of been pushing through it. Some of the girls got over within a few days, but of course I haven't gotten over it yet. So here I am, finally laying in my bed doing nothing but drinking zip fizz and blowing my nose.

This last week has been a blast:

• Dinner with our student's Henry and Coco and their families. They took us to a fancy restaurant and I had the best meal I've had in a month. Probably because I could make it more American. They bring out a big bowl of broth and put it on a stove in the middle of the table. Then you can just put whatever you want in it and make soup! So we put beef, potatoes, corn, garlic, cilantro, mushrooms, and noddles in there. It was divine! 
• On our way home we decided to get in tune with our Asian selves and tell everyone we saw how beautiful we think they are and ask them for pictures. You would not believe how happy it makes them! It's so cute. 
• While we were taking pictures we made some new friends. Some 16 year old skateboarders haha. They are so sweet. They said, "It's getting dark. We know kung-fu, we walk you home and keep you safe." haha How adorable is that?
• I got two meals, a new pair of shoes, a skirt, and a manicure all for less than 10 American dollars.
• I was at the mall sitting on a bench, waiting for the other girls to come out of the grocery store. Everyone that passed me just stopped for a second and starred, so I would smile at them and say "Piao liang" (beautiful), and then their hard faces would turn in to beautiful smiles! It feels so good to make people smile. So I pulled out my ukulele and started singing. Then I felt like a celebrity because everyone passing by just stopped and listened to me. Tons of people swarmed me! It was kind of overwhelming, but so fun! I just smiled and told them all that I love them.  As I was doing this, a man and his daughter came up to me. The little girl gave me a piece of gum and the father said, "You are a very good person. We watch you and we know you very happy girl. You are very good. You never stop smile." It almost brought tears to my eyes. These people are the sweetest people ever. It seriously just made my day. 
• We went to a salon to get our hair washed and styled. Ended up getting an amazing head/neck massage, and a twenty minute hair wash, and a style! All for like 2 dollars. I felt bad for the poor guy who tried to do my hair...I don't know if he has every had to style curly hair. I kept looking at his face and he was trying so hard. He ended up just blow drying it and calling it good...hahah it was so funny!
• I taught my cute little kids how to say I love you. Now when they see me they say, "Teachwa Kandy, I love you." Precious, I know.
• I got to go and visit another school about 20 minutes away! Let's just say I'm SO happy that I'm at my school :]
• The teachers invited us to "Watch the Moon" with them. Little did we know this meant we would get to see every single teacher in the school perform a dance, and then have to give and impromptu performance ourselves. They all had these sweet dances prepared, we beatboxed to The Princess Pat...hahahaha. It was so funny!

China is being so good to me. Even though I'm sick, and I'm tired, and I'm hungry, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now!

-Teachwa Kandy (hahah)

P.S. For some reason, my pictures wont work on my blog. So if you want to see them you must go to facebook.

Giraffes, Motor Taxis, and Bafalooms.

Just a quick update...

Last weekend was crazy fun! After a long (slightly awful) day of teaching on Friday, we were invited to a dinner with the mayor. All of the teachers in Xiaolan got to go eat at a really fancy restaurant, and the great part was that it was free! It was incredible, however I left kind of hungry. Chicken head, pig legs, and giant fish aren't really up my alley. But it was so fun. Our Chinese coordinator tricked us in to believing that the mayor wanted us to do an impromptu performance. Luckily they told us it was a joke before we started singing the Princess Pat in front of the mayor...

Saturday was long, but so great! We woke up early and took the sky train to Guangzho (the neighboring province) to go to the zoo! It was incredibly hot that day so we didn't have too much energy, but it was still way fun. I got to hold a weird snake and feed/pet a giraffe! It was pretty sweet! My favorite part was definitely the black jaguar. New favorite animal for sure. I would totally be a crazy cat lady if I could have one of those things! They have so much power and their fur is so gorgeous. Anyway, the zoo was great!

They tricked us into holding the snake, then made us pay 20 yuan...how annoying.

This is my favorite animal as of Saturday.

This is obviously me feeding a giraffe..

All of us teachwas at the zoo.

A few other random things I've done in the last few days:

-We painted our chins to look like faces...then filmed ourselves talking. If you're ever bored, do it! It entertains for hours.

-We watched Snow White and the Huntsman. I'm in love with Chris Hemsworth....he is one hunk of a man.

-I rode a Motor Taxi for the first time.

Pitcha please?

-I also used a squater for the first time ever. Pretty exhilarating...

-We did seaweed face masks last night, while watching Mulan. One of the best nights I've had here so far!

soo much love for these girls!

-I bought a bunch of stuff for really cheap. I love taobao.com. I love China.

-Today was teachers appreciation day. We woke up to children bringing us all sorts of flowers/gifts/cards! Got a pretty nifty water bottle, and a chinese cat piggy bank. Sweet.

-Sidenote: Whenever the kids need to go to the bathroom they say, "Teachwa, may I go to the bafaloom?"

Leo, showing us the card he made!

These girls were adorable. They did a little performance for all the teachers!

These are the younger kids we teach. Oh how I love them! My favorites are Angel (top left with the pink shirt), Aubrie (named after my sister, standing to the right of Angel), Norah (named after my future daughter, standing right in front of me), Sammy (bottom left corner, totally oblivious..), Oscar (middle of the bottom row with his hands on his hips), and sweet little Eric (Bottom row, yellow shirt, he melts my heart.)

The Last Few Days.

[this may end up being a really long post...sorry!]

I don't think my words can explain to you how much I love Xiaolan China.

I love, love, LOVE it.

So to start out, we got to Xiaolan late on Thursday night. We entered our school through this cute little gate!

We had to lug our bags all the way up 5 flights of stairs. It was quite the sight. 7 girls hauling their huge big heavy bags up the stairs, in the swealtering hot, humid weather. Once we got everything to our apartment we were drenched in sweat. It was disgusting. Also, 5 flights of stairs is equivalent to about 10 of these....

The building we live in looks like the one in the picture below. That's actually how all of the buildings in Xiaolan are. Our apartments are very simple. White tile, white floors, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and 3 bedrooms. My bedroom doesn't have air conditioning in it at all, so I sort of adopted the couch in the living room until it cools down. But our bathroom is really neat. The bathroom turns into a shower. The shower head is on the wall and you just stand on the bathroom floor between the sink and the toilet and shower. I actually really like it. Why don't Americans do that? It would save so much money!

                                             

















On Friday we were invited by the principal of our school to go on a hike and then have dinner! We obviously were more than happy to accept that invite. We had to take about an hour long bus ride to get there and we got to play with this little cutie the whole way. She is 2 and knows how to work an iphone better than any of us!

This one is of all of the staff at the school and some of their family members. They are the sweetest people on the planet.

All of is ILP teachers, and the cute little Chinese girl!

    

This is the temple that we got to climb up to! It was so gorgeous, even if we are not haha! We were seriously drenched in sweat from the heat/humidity.

This is easily the biggest spider I have ever seen in my entire life. It's legs are about 3 inches long...CRAZY!

After the hike we got back on the bus and got dropped off on a path that took us back into the mountains. We followed it and ended up at the most incredible little restaurant in the middle of no where. I wish so badly that I had pictures of this experience, but I don't so a description will have to do.

The first thing they brought out was orange juice and sprite, which is like so Chinese. If ever you see orange juice there is sprite right next to it, or visa versa. 

The second thing was some "Chicken Soup". You learn why it is chicken soup when you pull your spoon out and find a soggy chicken foot on it. Not my favorite..

Next were the chickens. We each got our own little chicken to eat. You just put on some gloves and go to town pulling it apart and eating it. I kind of felt like a savage, but it was so yummy! However, I went to pull one piece off and realized that it had a mouth, and eyes, and that it was actually the head of the chicken. I screamed, and it was about this time that the rest of the girls realized the head as well and we all started making strange noises of terror and disgust. Soon ever Chinese person within 200 feet was laughing hysterically at the wimpy little American girls...

After that they brought out some pork, tofu, weird green plants, a big ol' fish, orange chicken, pig legs, big stomach, strange potatoes, corn, and tons of other stuff. We were definitely full by the time we left! It was one of the best times I've had here so far.

Saturday was SUCH a fun day! We were able to explore the city of Xiaolan a little bit more and it was and adventure. Trying to order food when you literally don't know what you're going to get is always crazy. And people just stare at you no matter what you are doing. I love to smile at them and tell them they are beautiful because it just makes their entire day! 

Since I wasn't really ever able to celebrate my birthday, they decided to do it on Saturday night. What a fun time it was! First we went out for noodles. That whole plate of food is only two American dollars. Sweet eh! (Also side note, not that tank tops are awful, but I don't usually wear them. It is just so hot and humid here that I literally cannot handle it so I was desperate...maybe I'm silly for having to justify it, but it's my blog and I can say what I want! hahaha)

After noodles, we went and had a karaoke night! Doing karaoke at a place like this is so fun. You get to rent out your own little room and just go crazy, which is exactly what we did.

Kelly is our Chinese coordination. She is the sweetest, cutest girl on the planet. If everyone was like Kelly the world would be such a happy place. Anyway, she sang happy birthday to me and she has such a sweet/beautiful voice. Love her!

This cake....magically good.

Ah, these girls are so great! Megan, Maddie, Me, Makenna, Dani, Rachel, and Andrea. 

Heaven in the form of a cake...

Okay. This story is the best. As we were leaving the building a little Asian man comes running to stop our elevator and asks us to get out. We were so confused. He told us he had some friends who spoke english and they wanted to buy us a drink. And then we were scared that they were going to make us drink alcohol or something crazy, so we said "Doi bu chi bu shu," or sorry but no thank you. Then he told us that they just wanted to give us juice, so we were like what the heck why not. So we go in there and these boys were just so happy. They gave us sprite and just wanted to talk to us. Their english wasn't very good so it was hard to understand, but they were just so happy! We asked them if we could have a picture with them and they about had a caniption. They were SO flattered. "ME? YOU WANT A PICTURE WITH ME? ME SURROUNDED BY AMERICAN GIRLS, YES YES YES!" It was adorable. I love that just by doing such simple things, I can just make someones day.

Sunday was also just so great. After a two hour walk/bus ride we finally made it to church in Kaiyan. We had a testimony meeting. It was really nice. Its such a different feeling. At home I get to go to church. Here in China I WANT to go to church so badly. Bad enough to travel 2 hours there and 2 hours back every sunday!

This is us by a super cool tree on the way home from church.

Another hilarious story.

When we got off the bus after church, I look up and at the end of the street I see this...

A whole group of Chinese motorcycle taxi drivers just waiting for us with big huge smiles on their faces. Chinese men love American girls. These guys just followed us and wanted to kiss our hands and say hi to us a million times. Anyway, it was absolutely the funniest thing I've seen here so far so of course I had to take a picture.

Hahahahaha.

If  you can't tell, I am just loving every bit of this experience so far. I mean, I could do without the dreadful humidity/heat, or the 20 mosquito bites all over my body, or the warm water, but overall it is so great. I am so in love with the people here. If you have self confidence problems, come to China. They will tell you how beautiful you are even if you look like I do in all of these pictures hahaha.

Hope all is well back in the homeland. Love you all!

-Kambrie

A Very Quick Update

Ni Hao!

Oh my goodness. I cannot even describe to you how in love I am with this place. I am finally all settled down  in my dorm above the school that I will be teaching at and it is SO great. It is incredibly hot and humid and I'm fairly certain I haven't been dry since the moment I stepped off the plane, but I'm slowly adjusting.

My school is sort of in the heart of the city. It's about an 8-10 minute walk from the big shopping center called Da Fu Yen. Walking around the city is always so fun because everyone just stares at us because we are Americans. They all want to say hi to us and a lot of them secretly try to take pictures and think we can't tell, but they are incredibly obvious. And all the little kids just stare at us like we are ailens hahah! They are so cute! All the guys driving around on their little mopeds always have to do a double take as they drive by, and then they just keep staring and almost crash into each other. It's pretty funny!

This place is just amazing and I wish you all could experience this! I wish I had time to write more right now, but it will have to wait till tomorrow. It's about 1:00 in the morning here and I need to go to sleep! But I buckled and bought a proxy so I could blog. Otherwise I wouldn't be able due to the government censoring the internet here. So now you can keep up with me if you want!

Tomorrow I will post pictures and tell you all about what it's like living here, the hike I went on, the crazy/insane dinner I ate, and  karaoke night! Come back if you want a good laugh! And I'm not kidding. I'm  pretty sure you will laugh, even if it's just a little bit.

Lots and lots of love from Xiaolan!

-Kambrie