I AM LOVING CHINA. I wish my family and friends were here so I could share all these experiences with them, but I have made such great friends with the girls here. Everyday is a new adventure and I never know what to expect with each new day. Yesterday the weather was perfect, as in the humidity was bearable. Today it was so humid I was suffocating. Tomorrow it will probably be steaming acid rain, but who really knows.
We got to go to Shanghai last weekend for the district conference and heard from Elder Toronto of the Quorum of the Seventy. He gave a really good talk and I heard a lot of things I needed to hear. There were actually a lot of people there, I didn't expect so many LDS members to be in China. I loved hearing everyone from different parts of the world sing the hymns together. I am so grateful I can be across the world, but still have the gospel in my life. I have a new appreciation and understanding for what I am blessed with back home.
So this happened. We were given tents to put on our beds when we first got here because the mosquitos and spiders have been known to make an appearance. Of course I didn't put mine on though??? So I woke up looking like I got beat up by the Chinese children. It was so difficult to keep my eye open and I was getting a massive headache from being half blind, so by the time lunch came around I had given up and was walking around with only one eye open.
As if getting a fat eyeball wasn't a wake up call, we got this visitor the next night. It was the size of my hand. MY HAND. America spiders are such wimps compared to these Chinese monsters. If you can imagine 8 screaming girls standing on one tiny bed, one girl crying in her bedroom, and another standing on a chair swinging a boot around then you can probably imagine how this scenario went down. It was traumatic to be honest.
I got to experience what we here in China call "The Troth." It is literally that. You squat. You do your business. You leave. A stream of water comes rushing down every couple of minutes to wash the motherload down. One girl was really mesmerized by the efficiency of it all and couldn't stop talking about it. The lady behind me must've had a bad breakfast because I got to see everything coming out of her stall rush between my legs. Sorry if thats too much information, but nothing in China is glamorous (except the street noodles we found in Shanghai. Those deserve an award of some sort.)
I RODE AN ELEPHANT. As I was walking up the stairs to get on the elephant it started to walk away and the man didn't even notice. That wasn't really all that comforting, but YOLO. I got on and as we started walking around the little path the elephant took a little pit stop and started digging in the trash. It was a little bit of a struggle because 1. Ive never rode an elephant before and 2. I didn't know how to yell "help the elephant has gone rogue" in Mandarin. Once that was sorted out the elephant started trotting and I was holding on for dear life as we sped up from 2mph to like 5mph. It cost me $5 USD and it was the best $5 have ever spent in my entire life.
I HELD A LION. The Chinese literally do not understand the concept of forming an orderly line so once the cub was brought out it became a madhouse. Luckily we were there early and were the first ones to hold the cub because he started crying and they had to take him back inside. He was so soft! When I was handed him I felt like I was being handed my first born child.
I FED A GIRAFFE. Their tongues are so long and naturally I felt some sort of connection to it.
Feeding these fish was so mind-blowing to me. We were given baby bottles with fish food in them and sent in to feed these massive fish. They were no little gold fish. These things were jerking our arms back and forth while sucking on the bottles. One looked like an old grandpa and it was kind of weird. I wanted to stick my hand in the pond and let them suck on my hand, but they were so large I was scared they would eat my entire arm.
This is my new friend, Jennie, she's kinda cool. We have become really good friends these past few weeks and get along really well. We took this picture after the longest day ever, but we were so happy in the moment and didn't have any complaints so we decided to document the moment. Usually we both feel somewhat homesick or China smelt really bad that day, but after spending a day at the zoo, the district conference, and eating the best street noodles I have ever had, we went to sleep happy.
Three months from now I will be back home with my family and hopefully have a belly full of cafe rio, a green salad, A CHEESEBURGER, and a bean burrito.
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