Today is the Day

So today is the day that we all go home. It is very weird, the emotions that are going through me are of a different variety. If anything being here has made me more grateful. More grateful for our country, the freedoms we have, our government, my family, my friends, the Temple, the sacrament, carpet, dryers, shower curtains, boneless chicken, toilets, etc... I love China. I love the people here. They made this experience one to always cherish. I've never met a more humble loving people in all my life. I love that they go out of their way to go help a stranger. My last picture is of my kids and I. That is why I was here. I love them with all my heart. They were my life for five months and I am going to miss them very much. They taught me more than I would have ever taught them. They taught me patience, how to be silly, how to love. I hope that I can walk away from this experience a better person because they were my friends.
Anyway I get in on Friday at 7 pm. Hopefully all goes well. Thanks so much for always checking out on my life. You guys are the greatest! I'll make sure and update when I get home to tell you how jet-lagged I am :). I love you all! See you on the other side!

Love always, Mandy

2 Days Left!

Here's one of the cute stories for our kids that we like to talk about:
While teaching kitchen one day, Emily was making 90 second cake with frosting. When she pulled out the frosting she let all the kids try it. When she asked the kids what they thought the frosting tasted like Lucas replied "It tastes like love". I agree Lucas :)

Love always, Mandy

3 Days Left!

I saved one of the best things about China for the end-half of the countdown. This is a squatter. This is what the Chinese people "do their business" in. This has been the hardest thing that I've had to overcome in China BY FAR! These Chinese people are great at it though. They can squat all the way down and still keep their heels planted firmly on the ground... sheer talent. I know this because sometimes they just go in the streets.
My favorite memory with a squatter was on our way to San Ya. Our bus stopped at a "rest stop" for a few minutes and I went to go use the restroom. You had to pay one yuan to get into the bathroom. Right when I walked in I saw that there were no stalls at all, not even dividers. They was just a trough thing, like what the pigs eat out of, that you squatted over and did your business, then it was carried away in the current of waste. I walked in, then I walked out. I pretty much paid one yuan to witness the grossest squatters in the world.

Love always, Mandy

4 Days left!

So today's blog is a memory:

In China they don't have soft places to sit like we do. We have found few sofas at all, they don't even have carpet in any of the houses that we have ever been to. Comfort isn't really something they worry about here. So the first night we got here in China was a rough night, because we were sleeping on something stiffer than we usually sleep on :). The mattresses don't sink a fraction of an inch when you sit on them. That first night Emily had a dream that she pulled off the sheets of her bed and found that she was sleeping on a cement slab and remarked "I knew it!" We all found this dream super funny because thats pretty much what it feels like.

Love always, Mandy

5 Days Left!

The Chinese people really believe in conserving energy. For example: Escalators don't move until someone steps on them, in hotels you insert the key into a slot in the wall to get the power to work, you have to pay to get a plastic bag at the grocery store, they also don't have dryers... at all. So how does everyone dry their clothes you might ask? Outside. We have some chains hanging on our balcony where we hang up all our clothes. Usually with the humidity they don't dry for several days. You pretty much get use to seeing everyone's underwear hangin around everywhere.

Love always, Mandy

The China ILP Experience

This is the video that was shown to the parents of the children.
Enjoy!
-Kyle Carter

6 Days Left!

Alright this is a picture of our shower in our apartment. Yes... it really is just a hose coming out of the wall. The big box that it is hooked up to turns on the heat... sometimes. Our water is hooked up to propane and it decides when it wants to work or not. So we've had plenty of cold showers here. Don't you just love the privacy as well :) The best part about the whole thing is that the first month and a half the light didn't work in the bathroom so we got so use to showering with the light off that we still don't turn it on!

Love always, Mandy

7 Days Left

So this picture pretty much just explains China. That is not water on my back, that is sweat... Yummy! Everyone's backs look like that every day in this humidity and heat! Your sweat never evaporates it just sits on you all day long. The greatest part about the whole thing is when the Chinese people lift up their arms. Not only do the women not shave their armpits but they don't have deodorant here. I'm not kidding, we've looked everywhere. These people, even with how sweating and pungent they smell, don't believe in deodorant :)

Love always, Mandy

8 Days Left

Here's another picture for you. This one you can pretty much figure out what it is yourself :). They just have lots of chicken feet on ice you can pick up and put in a bag to snack on later.
Can't wait to see you in 8 days!

Love always, Mandy

9 Days Left

Here is today's memory:

This was us in GuangZhou at the Amusement Park with the biggest roller coaster in the world. We were waiting for a show to start and Amy was saving us all seats. Treat it like its "Where's Waldo?" Can you find Amy in the sea of Asians? That's how much we stick out here :)

Love always, Mandy

10 days left

With 10 days left before we go home I have decided to write a 10 day countdown including a funny picture or memory of China.

Today's picture is the translation of what is at the GuangZhou Subway station :)

Love always, Queen M.

DVD Summaries

So I had just to write something that is really very comical about China. When you buy DVDs here they're usually pirated in some way :) or some strange version of the original movie. They always have the back of the cover with the summary of the movie, in Chinese and in English. Usually the translation coverts over a little funny. This is an example, word for word (and spelling with punctuation), from the movie Bambi:
"A Helpless little deer is born by the name of Bambi. He is born among the forest to a grateful Mother. Bambi meets some animal friends for himself, A rabbit named Thumper and a skunk named Flower. Bambi falls in love while he grows up along sied his friends. The troubles of the wild life strike when a hunter kills Bambi's mother. The troubles of the emotional for every animal in the forest. A beautiful ending concludes this masterpiece..."
So! There's the summary! Now we don't even have to watch the movie!

Love always, Mandy

A Day at the Spa

So yesterday was a strange day in the fact that we had no idea what we were getting into before we did it but it ended up turning out great! We had heard about this "Hot Springs" that was about a hour away from our apartment and decided to take a risk and see what it was all about. It was not what we expected at all! I thought it was going to be some cave with little baths to sit in. No. Right when we got out of the taxi this lady ran up to us carrying an umbrella to shade us from the sun! It was a spa! They had a free buffet and probably around 20 different mini baths and pools you could sit in while people brought you drinks and put your towel around you. Some of the baths you sat in were suppose to help cure and cleanse you too. Like cure measles, moisten the throat, "build up" blood, cure joint pain, etc... So we walked out of the pools disease free! We also ended up getting foot massage, back massage, and an organic facial. What a life!

Love always, Mandy

Home Visits

So this week we spent a lot of our nights going on Home Visits to visit our kids and meet their families. A lot of the time we just go to their house and they feed us lots of different types of fruits and we just sit there and smile because we don't know what they're saying. Sometimes though the parents will take us out to dinner. Dinners in restaurants are really interesting here. You always sit on a round table. Usually in the middle of the table there is a rotating round piece of glass that the waiters put the food on so you can just spin the glass to grab whatever food you want with your chopsticks. So hopefully no one is sick :) You have to clean your own chopsticks and ladle with a tea that they pass around. You dump the tea back into a bowl when your through washing your utensils. They bring out the WHOLE animal: Head, feet, arms, thighs, neck, and everything else you can think of... You put the whole piece, that you grab, into your mouth and spit out the bones onto the table when you have gotten all the meat off of it. When your meal is through the desert is either apples or oranges. The best part of the meal is usually the juice. It is always homemade whether that is apple juice, orange juice, watermelon juice, or corn juice. If you don't get juice it is usually STEAMING hot water that you aren't even able to drink until your meal is over. At the very end of the meal you lay your chopsticks together on the table and cover your mouth as you pick out the rest of your meal in your teeth with toothpicks they give you. They are never concerned that they just put an animal's femur bone into their mouth but they are always concerned that they might have something in their teeth :)

Love always, Mandy

Birthday in China

So this last weekend we celebrated my Birthday. It was kinda interesting having a birthday in China. Gave us an excuse to actually party though. It was kinda like a four-day event. We started it on Friday (the fifth) we went to ShurQi to go to "The Potato Cafe" where they serve the most amazing french toast with peanut butter in the middle of them.... yum. On Saturday (the sixth-my real birthday) we traveled to GuangZhou to go to a Water Park. It ended up being a really hot day and so it ended up being perfect! It was the most American I've ever felt in China (except you know for all the Chinese people walking around everywhere). Even though they don't scream like us American's do on rides they sure know how to make the rides fun. They even played Rascal Flatts the whole day, we're claiming it was just for my birthday. Sunday (the 7th) I got a package from my family which was full of goodies and cake mix so we ended up making plates and plates of Funfetti cookies with 20 candles placed in them. On Monday (the 8th) Annie brought me over a cake which was great, and everyone got to sing "Happy Birthday" to me for about the seventh time. I am no longer a teenager anymore... it is great!

Love always, Mandy

Children's Day

So on Monday, June 1st, we had Children's Day! I had never heard of Children's Day before but it is kinda like a Mother or Father's Day celebration here but bigger! The whole school got all decorated and pretty much it was just a "do whatever you want" day. It was so much fun! We didn't have to prepare lessons we just went down for three hours and played with the kids. We tried playing Musical Chairs with them and Four Corners but we ended up just going and playing on the playground all day. Then we all got together and the school gave the kids all these treats to take home to their families to eat. After they had handed out the goodies us teachers got to eat lunch with the kids. Each of the kids brought their favorite treat and we all got to eat it together. They have some funky treats here... like jelly with little balls in them, corn popsicles, red bean ice cream, and of course you always have tomatoes on your cake (because it is a fruit :)). The kids got to go home early in the afternoon to spend the rest of the day with their families. SUCH a fun day!! I wish every day were Children's Day.

Love always, Mandy

The "Traveling Pants" China tribe

Mud Caves in Guilin

Mandy and Raychel in Guilin

Trip to Guilin

So we just got back from Guilin and it was a really fun trip. We saved this trip to be our last one because it had all the stuff that we were looking forward to doing the most.The landscape of Guilin was the most incredible that I have seen so far! It had mountains that inclined into a steep peak and it was SO green! It rained most of the time we were there but that just gave us an excuse to use wicked cool ponchos! So the first day we got there we rented out bikes and rode them to where the mudcaves are at. When we got to the place we took a canoe inside and for the first couple minutes we had to lay as flat as we could because the cave ceiling was so close. The cave was really neat. Just what a cave should be: Dark, cold, wet, with BATS! We ended up stopping at three places in the cave: the cold pond, the mud pond, and the hot springs. The cold pond I just enjoyed watching people freeze to death. The mud pond was AWESOME!!! A child's heaven. We all just rolled around in the mud getting completely covered!!! It was pretty cold so we didn't stay there long. The hot springs was just a place that had divets in the rock and you could sit in them surround by warm water. It was just like a bath, it was delighful.
The next day we went to a village out in the middle of nowhere- where the Guiness Book of World Records holds a record of a whole village of women who have long hair. They have hair down to their feet, they aren't allowed to cut it. Its odd. We hiked up what was called the Dragon's Back in the village and at the very top you could see mountains and mountains of rice fields!! It was the most incredible sight ever! They're been perserved over hundreds of years.
The last day we were there we got on a bamboo raft and drifted down the Lee River. This was really cool because all we drifted right in between the awesome mountains. It was very relaxing and very beautiful. We've got the chance to see some of the coolest things while we've been here in China.
Anyway hope all is going well for everyone at home. Three and a half more weeks and I will be joining you! Time sure has flown...

Love always, Mandy