My First week in China

First I want to apologize I have not had really good access to the internet until now.
Well what an adventure my life has been so far and it is only Monday! I have not even been gone for a week and it feels like i have been here for a month!
Well I should first start of by tell you that I left last Wednesday at 9:00 pm at night. I have to first thank my dad and sister showing up before i left it really meant the world to me. We arrived in California around 10:50 Utah time, and I have to say that i am never EVER going to bring so much luggage with me any where EVER! I had 2 50 pound bags a carry on bag that was 43 pounds and a laptop case packed full, by the end of the trip i have never felt so much pain in my neck EVER. When we got to the Plane that took us to Taipei Taiwan they informed us that our carry on bag could only be 15 pounds! We were all so mad, i luckily all my weight was in books so i shoved them in my laptop case and then carried them. Once we got passed security i was able to put them back in the bag. BUT WHAT A PAIN IT WAS! Something i will never do again is take as many books as i did :) Anyways our flight to Taipei was only 13 hours long which did not seem to bad. No one in the group got to sit together we were surrounded by a whole bunch of people who did not know English or know what deodorant was :) It was midnight when we got on so we were all so tired and i crashed before the plane even took off. They woke us up and made us eat dinner at like 1:30 am which when looking back was the worst food ever but we were so tired and hungry we did not care. I crashed right after dinner woke up for breakfast, then we arrived about a hour after so it was not way bad, but it still was hard. After that we went right to the next flight to Hong Kong which was like a 2 hour flight which was not bad, because we were able to sit by each other and i got to color :)
HONG KONG what a adventure this city was for us blonde Americans. The day we arrived at our amazing top of the line hotel. The three girls that were coming with me to my city Mandy (Kreigh’s sister), Emily, Raychele, and I went to Disney Land Hong Kong! The happiest place on earth no matter how tired you are. It was so fun everyone thought we were so stupid for going, but they all were just jealous. This was our first experience with any subway in any of our lives. You know when you see people and you laugh at them because you know they are stupid tourists? Well we were 10 times worse, we had to exchange money, get tickets and find our way. For some reason i have a fit sense of direction so I got us there way easy. We were so excited and crazy the first hour there. We ran every where and it was like nothing was going to stop us, then it happened…. JET LAG oh my goodness we dropped so far in energy. We first were became super tired, then way grumpy, then the fun part we were so delusional we were insane and tired and it was hilarious. I do not care what any one says but Disney Land will never get old Never!
The next day we left and did a tour of all of Hong Kong. It was so small and so busy with over 36 billion people on this little island thing it was crazy! Oh and if anyone has driven with me they know i am not the best driver, Well in China i would be AMAZING. Everyone honks, drives on the wrong side, speeds, it is crazy every time I am in a car i think I am going to die. Oh and no one stands in line and it bugs the crap out of me. No one cares they just do whatever they want whenever. It is weird how they do not think it is rude they were just grown up that way. ANY WAYS after the tour a bunch of us went to the Hong Kong Temple which was so pretty and amazing. It made me miss home so much, but helped comfort me as well. After the temple we went and ate at T.G.I. Fridays which was so American and i loved it:) Then we went over to a road called the Avenue of Stars and watched all of the down town buildings do a laser show to music. It was awesome China just over does America in so many ways with technology. On our way home we hopped on the wrong subway and we were so tired that we couldn’t get mad, but we had to take 5 other subways to get back to where we needed to be, WELCOME TO CHINA!
Well Yesterday We arrived to our school in Xiolon Zhongshan. It was a huge change going from Hong Kong to Mainland China. Everything is dirty and well different i guess. Our rooms are suppose to be top of the line and well lets just say they scared me at first. Our Shower is right on top of our toilet, but we do have a flushing toilet which is way nice. After getting things put away it really didn’t look bad it is just different. We also met the other 2 girls and our head teacher and they live next door to us four. They are all so cute, it is nice that we are all LDS it helps to know that we all have something in common. Oh and church wise i guess we get to go to church 1 a month it is a 2 hour trip and cost lots of mula so the bishop told us to come as much as we can. Us girls decided we are going to hold our own meetings every Sunday. It is going to be so weird not being able to take the Sacrament every week. But i know Heavenly Father will take care of us and help us with everything!
Last night the owner of our school took us out to eat. Way different, I have never had to use chopsticks with everything! It was Tai food Everything was so spicy and i LOVED it! I ate Turtle, Fish head, and pigs ears. The funny thing is no one knew until later what we had eaten. I ate mainly green beans and cabbage and the soup, but all of the flavors were so different and i am glad i tasted everything!
Our first official day we took a tour of our city to see what is around and get Cleaning Supplies HECK YES! i have never been so excited to clean Afterwards we went out to eat at our first restaurant called “the crossing bridge” it was basically noodles and soup. After that our tour girl who helps us around came and made us four Chinese dishes for dinner. She over salted everything, but she is the nicest girl in the world so everyone just pretended to enjoy it. The next day we all went and got head massages the last 30 mins it was so amazing we are going to go back every month to get one. After they massaged our hair a whole bunch of guys came and got and and styled our hair. The guy doing my hair kept getting mad at me because he wanted to cut my hair. He kept saying it was uneven. Which if anyone has seen my hair it is A symmetrical so it is not even on purpose. Plus i am trying to grow it out for my wedding. He was not very happy with me, oh well. Last night I went to bed not feeling so great and I woke up with a cold, LAME HUH! That will not stop me from my day, but it is not fun being here and being sick.

Yesterday we decorated our apartment in construction paper cut outs i will have to post pictures soon of it. it makes our home so much more American!! YES :)
Tomorrow we are going Gunanzhau and going to go on the largest roller coaster in the world. I KNOW YOu shoul all be jealous!!!
Well i love and miss you all so very much! i hope you enjoy reading my adventures! LOVES