On Thursday we celebrated Easter with the kids. We painted their faces and had an Easter egg hunt. It was fun to do something with the kids other than teaching. It was the first day in a while that the sun came out and it was very warm and humid. Not the best timing. But it was still fun!
Plus the kids are super cute with bunny faces painted on them! Plus, on Thursday I successfully accomplished doing a crown braid.
And I had a super cute model ;)
Friday morning all my roommates and I packed up and headed to the train station to begin our 2nd vacation. We started off our journey by taking a 15 hour bus ride. We did manage to communicate with the nice Chinese people on the train so that we could all sit together on our long ride. We passed the time by reading, sleeping, and playing ridiculous games that kept us entertained...and I'm pretty sure we entertained most of the people on the train as well.
We couldn't sleep very much, so we decided to sleep for a while when we got to our hostel at about 6:30 in the morning. We were split into 2 rooms, 3 in each. Kim, Liz, and Annie were in 1 room without any other roommates in their room. And Cassie, Caley, and I were in a room except we did have a roommate. He was a 20-something guy from Germany. When we got into our room all we wanted to do was sleep because we were so exhausted, but the German guy wanted to talk to us. We tried to be polite, but we were so exhausted, so we eventually stopped talking to him. He then decided that he needed to drink a lot of water, but he couldn't do it quietly. Oh, no! He would crinkle his bottle as loud as possible and then let out the loudest exhale when he was finished. This went on for maybe an hour before he decided to get up and leave. We then slept in until about noon. Once we woke up we decided we didn't want to head to the national park, since our day was already half over.
While eating some snacks for breakfast I found a pamphlet for some hot springs which we decided to try out. However, none of us brought our swimsuits since the weather was supposed to be cold and rainy, so we went to the store and bought the best things we could find to swim in. So, we ended up being tank tops and men's underwear. Hahahaha! The drive to the hot springs took us through some of the most beautiful small mountain roads.We didn't get any picture of the hot springs since our phones and cameras weren't allowed inside. I ended up paying for one of the fish-pedi things where the fish eat the dead skin off of your feet, but the one we ended up paying for was the whole body one! The entire time I was squeezing Annie's hand and I kept saying over and over again, "I don't like it!". The hot springs were so fun and we had a great time going together. Liz also did this awesome distribution of rose petals to each of us while we were in the herb and flower hot spring. She made us all feel like we were getting selected for the bachelor and it ended up being one of our favorite memories from the whole vacation.
On Sunday we decided to head to the national park, since it was the whole reason we had traveled all the way there. But, we soon found out that we had come very unprepared for the rain and cold temperatures. We got to the park and I, along with the other girls, had to buy another jacket because of how cold it was. We also purchased scarves, plastic covers for our shoes, and ponchos.
Because it was Easter we decided to find an unoccupied pavilion and sing some Easter hymns together. Annie also read us some scriptures and we had a little devotional. Annie also bought us some dried kiwis that we shared. We then decided to go back to our hostel since we weren't prepared for the rain and we were already cold and miserable. On the way walking back to the bus we found some cute little shops that we shopped at for a little bit. That is were I bought a selfie stick. That meant that the next hundred pictures on my phone consisted of selfies and videos taken with my selfie stick!
And the video I took with it:
When we got back to our hostel I had to run down to the corner store and buy some more socks, since all of mine were already soaked. We also found a fun game called Werewolf, which is pretty much like playing the game Mafia. We played that for a few hours and even got an Irish friend we had made to play with us. After being soaked all day, being really cold, and playing games for hours, we decided to head to bed so we could wake up early the next day to hike. Once again, we were stuck with the really loud water breather all through the night. I don't think he slept at all. He just drank his water...ALL NIGHT.
The next morning we were way more emotionally and physically prepared to hike. We found some cool trails to follow and we even found some wild monkeys. I thought they were super cute, but Caley was terrified of them. When we got to a rest spot, Caley decided she wanted a snack so she got out a granola bar. The monkeys started running over to her because they wanted the food. She then screamed and hid behind Kim for a few minutes. The monkeys ripped through the plastic on the bar and ate it. It was actually hilarious. Especially since Caley was the only one who hated the monkeys.
This is the monkey who stole Caley's snack. I named him Albert.
Once we got to a pretty good spot we decided to climb back down, since it was really cloudy and we couldn't see the view very well. I decided to count how many steps we climbed as we were climbing down and I counted over 2,500! I felt so proud of myself.
The next day, Tuesday, was our last day of vacation. So, we woke up early and headed to the park again. We decided to take the cable car since it was still foggy. We got to the top and they had some cute shops again. I decided to get a poster with my Chinese name on it. My Chinese name is Zhū Lì Yè. It's a name that is very recognizable here in China, because it is their version of Juliette. So, they know that name from Romeo and Juliette. My Chinese name means "a beautiful lady" I also got a cool video of the guy painting my name!
We spent the remainder of our time walking around the top of the mountain and eating some yummy cart food. The Zhangjiajie National Park is commonly referred to as the Avatar mountains since they are where some scenes were filmed in the movie Avatar. Like I said it was really foggy, but there were moments when the clouds parted and we got some pictures!
They are so attractive!
It was so cold!
I feel like I'm really rocking the 80's leggings with tube socks thing.
We were super excited to get a picture with the view, but right when we snapped this picture the clouds came back.
You can see this very well, but this was a glass bridge that you could step onto and look down. It was actually terrifying.
More monkeys!
I took this video on top of the mountain too!
Well, after our exploration on the top of the mountain we had to head back down and go to the train station to catch our train home. Luckily we were able to get sleepers on the way. It was really nice to have a bed to lay down on, on the 15 hour ride back. Annie also has some amazing balancing skills!
Some of my roommates' favorite quotes from the trip:
"I want to sweep a tomb...one day I will!" -Annie
"I have seen to many butts and boobs today." -Me
"I feel like you need a sports bra to even drive in China." -Me
"Years on the swim team have prepared me for this moment!"-Cassie (while changing in a locker room full of naked Asian women)
"I feel like my soul has always wanted to be friends with Cassie and it just didn't know it until I met her." -Me
It was so fun to spend time with these girls!
Those monkey pictures are awesome. Dad would approve! :) also when you said you ate some "yummy cart food" the first time I read that I thought it said "yummy CAT food" so....LOL!
ReplyDeleteAnd two of the videos (the first and last) don't play. It says they're private.