From Hongkong to Chengdu

What a wild adventure this has been getting to Sichuan University! I know my previous blogs have been pretty lame as far as details and it is all over generally bad writing, so this will be my official first semi-thoughtful blog...I have only been gone for 2 weeks, but it feels like it could easily have been months!

After our first 12 hour layover adventure in Vancouver, it was a relief to finally get to Hongkong. I wasn't bored at all in Vancouver though. We hit up the town and ate at an awesome Italian restaurant. They asked us if we were all 19 and over, so I ended up ordering a raspberry beer...eh not a big fan. But it was kinda cool feeling all legal :) But that feeling was short lived. Chinese serve beer with practically every meal I've eaten. It's always tea and beer...so gross! Maybe it helps wash the spiciness down. Give me my latte with extra foam please. Oh, wait. You don't have any milk. And my cheese staple is nonexistant too...but I don't mean to bore you with my food rampage.

Hongkong reminded me of NY with high-end labels and big crowds. I really wanted to get a hold of my friend Crystal Lee who lives in HK, but I had a full schedule and no cell phone or internet made that kinda impossible. We went to a museum all about Hongkong history. The most interesting part was seeing the prehistoric exhibits. Oh, I forgot to mention the typhoon. Our plane landed during the tail end, so there was torrential rain on the first day. But it got nice enough for us to walk around HK the following days and check out the shops and go to the beach. I walked up stairs for what felt like 20 minutes in hot humidity. Everyone was soaked in sweat by the end. However, reaching our destination made it all worth it. We visited a Hongkong orphanage and got to hear about the organization and then see the babies. It was awesome because this is exactly what I can see myself doing with a Chinese Studies major. From there we took a tram up the mountains and experienced the amazing view of the whole city down to sea level. Hongkong is such a versatile city; it is a bustling city with natural beauty as well.

From Hongkong we got on a short plane trip to Guilin. When we got there we only had time to check into our hotel and go to bed. We woke up in the morning to more torrential rain! The food was really good :) We got on a small river boat and went on a 4 hour trip down the Li River. I met the cutest Chinese girl who was 9 years old! My friend Luke took a few pictures of us together. That boat trip was pretty interesting, especially the "she jiu." There was probably 4 or 5 whole snakes in this bottle of liquor. So of course everyone in our group HAD to have some. :( It was totally weird and it burned a little....eh peer pressure! When we got off the boat, there was a little town. Everyone was approaching us, asking us to buy things like maps and fans. We all learned the phrase "bu yao" very well meaning "I don't want." The next part of the trip was hard because we went on a tour through the farm villages and saw people living in very dirty conditions. An old woman with no teeth approached me desparate to sell a really dumb cheap toy. We had to be careful about taking pictures too. Another woman was carrying her baby in a basket and when we took a picture of him, she asked us for money for the picture. It was very sad to see how desparate these people were.

Out of Guilin we rode on the train through the night to Wuhan, known as the hell of China or something like that because of how hot it was. We got lucky tho because it was overcast. Or was it smog? I'm not sure anymore...But anyway, the train was pretty fun. The girls all got to sleep in closed cabins, while the boys got cabins open to the aisle. We just sat around and talked a lot, then watched p.s. i love you and went to bed. When we got to Wuhan we ate breakfast in this weird basement before visiting the famous Yellow Crane Tower. This place was famous for the scholars who would drink bai jiu and write their renouned poetry. Bai jiu, by the way translates to "white liquor" or the Chinese call it rice wine. There is nothing wine about it... at 52% this stuff is definitely not good for you--no "glass of fine rice wine with dinner," anyway. So these famous intellectuals would drink this stuff and somehow produce amazing works of literature. At the tower, I got a sweet fan with my Chinese name Wei Jingjing on it. But alas, my fan was in my purse that got stolen. Sad day.

Also in Wuhan we went to a museum. There was an exact replica of a set of ancient bells played in 400 BC. It was awesome to watch a performance and think that they were played 400 years before christ. Weird to think about....

From Wuhan we took a bus ride to Yiching (?I think?) where we got on the Victoria Catarina for a 4 day long 5-star cruise. Normally PLU schedules only 4-star cruises, but because all the 4 stars were full, we had to upgrade....too bad :) The cruise was definitely my favorite part of China so far. The accomodations were way more than I could have ever fathomed! It was a great bonding experience for the group too. We were pretty much the only young people onboard. There were lots of old English people. So every night we had the dance floor all to ourselves. It was really fun trying to get the old people to dance with us! On the first day, we docked and took a trip to the 3 gorges dam, the biggest dam in the world! It rained really hard that day and I think I was one of the only people without an umbrella...lol I was very happy to see rain! But the whole Yangtze river was pretty rainy, so it was a nice change. One night, the crew put on a cabaret and invited the guests to perform. Sarah and I were more or less signed up against our will to sing "Tian mi mi," a chinese song I learned in high school. All the other performances were very extravagant with beautiful costumes and dancing. I was scared of what I had gotten myself into. Ours is going to be a joke. I was going to embarrass myself on a 5-star cruise. We pretty much just did karaoke up on stage, but for some reason we were the hit of the show. Two guys brought us flowers, I danced with one of them, and we got the best applause by far. I am not being ostentatious, but the crowd's response was crazy. I don't know what I did, but it was fun.

We traveled through the lesser gorges too. It was beautiful and mist enshrouded. The tour guide did a lot of "if you use your imagination, you can see..." in reference to the shape of the cliffs. Apparently my imagination is not that good. On the last day before we reached our destination, we visited the ghost city of Fengdu. It was basically a big temple where a supposed "heaven" resided. It also had horrible depictions of hell. There were enough nightmarish statues and figures being tortured to give me a lifetime of chills. One interesting thing I noticed about the Chinese beliefs is the parallel to God. They believe every person will be judged for their life. If you do bad things, you are tortured in hell. Specific punishments suit the evil deed. They are SO missing a savior!! There were many parallels to Christianity, that I can't help but think that God is trying to reveal Himself to the whole world. I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this...

Coming back from Fengdu, I think I was very emotionally and spiritually sensitive. Raeder and I had a pretty good conversation on the walk back down about God revealing Himself to us and others. Then walking down the stairs to the marina there were a handful of crippled and blind beggars. My heart just broke for them. I wanted to help them, but there was nothing I could do. I remembered in James how it says "suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, 'Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well'--but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does it do?" I felt so bad at that point. Then I remembered how Jesus told the crippled man to stretch out his hand and for the blind man to walk. I was filled with the holy spirit, but for some reason I kept on walking. I think I confused my fear of God with earthly fear. I wish I could be writing right now about how those people walked away from the marina by the power of God. I think every Christian experiences the guilt of disobedience. What if my faith wasn't strong enough to heal those people? What if, what if, what if....................? That will be a moment that lives in my memory forever.

My journey to Chengdu continued and we arrived in Chongqing. We were only a few hours away from Chengdu!!! On the very long bus ride, we stopped at the Baoding Buddhist carvings in Dasu. It was pretty amazing to see all of those ancient caves and figures carved into the rock. This place was on the edge of the desert, so the monks would stop there either before or after their journey to thank the gods or ask for safe travel. I will hopefully post tons of pictures on facebook soon!

So we finally get to Chengdu, and it is nothing like I expected it to be. It is such a big city. I think I was picturing something a little more small-scale. My immediate impression was that there were many rich and poor parts of town. In fact, the place where I bought my bike was a super sketchy part of town where they led us down this dirty back alley. I'm almost 100% sure that it ws black markey territory and the bike I bought may have been stolen. When I first got to my dorm, I was not impressed. The floors and walls were cracked, the building has termites, and our shower leaked. Funny story about that: we came back one afternoon to find a big hole where the shower used to be. There was dirt everywhere and we could see the exposed bricks on the sides of the walls. The funny part was when my roommate Tiara saw a little dirt on the groud and started to sweep it up before she noticed that this was one problem that sweeping was not going to fix :D

I like Tiara, I think we have a lot in common. She loves Jesus and likes to sing. We both want to start working out more. The other day we went shopping together and she bought a guitar. We both can't wait to start up the worship songs! She cleans a lot, which is definitely not a bad thing. She has folded my laundry and made my bed a couple times. We both like to make lists and plan everything out, but we both like to just go out and have fun and unwind. Tonight we planned out our whole schedule, which included class, working out, studying, worship time, etc. I'll keep you posted on how diligent we are. But knowing me, I will probably embrace the routine, especially in a foreign country. This is my way of exercising control over my strange life...

So anyway, here I sit with almost 3 weeks of China under my belt. Whether feeling good or bad, there is always the unexpected highs and lows. One thing I never anticipated were the crazy mosquitos here! I come home with insanely itchy bites EVERYWHERE. I gave myself bruises on my leg from scratching so hard. There isn't malaria here though, but the malaria medication is actually helping my acne, so I think I'll keep using it. Tomorrow I am going to the consolate to replace my stolen passport. In 10 days or so I will apply for my visa. There are about 30 malaria pills left. I am hoping by the time they are gone, this whole stolen purse fiasco will be a memory and I will have a nice blemish-free face to show for it!

So that's it for now. I miss all of you and I can't wait to hear about your boring lives!