HONG KONG

Hong Kong was SO. COOL. You just can't do Hong Kong in 2 days, so I'm sad we weren't able to stay longer. The first day was kind of a wild ride haha. So after we got to Hong Kong from Guangzhou by train, our professors took us out to lunch. One of my friends on the trip is allergic to peanuts and he's super careful about what he eats, making sure that none of it has peanuts or is made in the same pan because allergic reactions aren't fun. So we ate lunch and our professor told us that we could go off on our own as long we were in a group of 4 or more, so a group of friends and I went off to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery while everyone else stayed with the professors and explored around the city. As we were transferring subway stations, this friend stops us and says he's having an allergic reaction. Luckily at this transfer station there was one of the biggest hospitals in Hong Kong and it was only a quarter of a mile away. He took his epipen because it got pretty bad and we all walked him over there, making sure he was okay. We called our professors to tell them what happened and they came to the hospital to help with the insurance that the study abroad provides for us. We got him there in time and everything turned out alright. Luckily the hospital accepted the insurance and it covered the cost of the whole trip, so that's a blessing. Honestly for a group of college students, I think we handled the situation very well, we stayed calm and were able to find him a hospital fast. I'm proud.

While he was being nursed back to health, the rest of us went onto the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery. Fun fact: there are actually thirteen thousand buddhas; I don't know who named this monastery but maybe they're extremely humble because they downplayed what they have by three thousand buddhas hahaha. So while walking up this mountain, the path was lined with golden buddhas, it was honestly super cool to look ahead and see it go on forever. When you reached the end of this first path it led to a Buddhist temple where there were thousands of tiny buddhas lining the walls. And this wasn't a small room either. It looked super cool behind the big Buddha. Then when you explore around the monastery you can go up further to a place where there's a large white Buddha against the mountain and a bunch of golden buddhas all around the mountain side near a waterfall. Then right next to those was a super cool lookout of downtown Hong Kong. Honestly it was incredible to see so many buddhas in one day.

After we left the monastery we were trying to meet up with the rest of the group so we could go to a cool viewpoint up on Victoria Peak to see Hong Kong at sunset and at night. However, we got a little lost haha. We ended up taking a bus 7 stops past where we needed to be, so we had to take the subway back to the right place. Then when we got to Victoria peak, we went to a different viewpoint than the rest of the group because we didn't know where we were going. They saw the typical overview picture of Hong Kong, which is super cool, whereas we saw the backside of Hong Kong where it was more mountainous. Honestly though, I didn't mind. It was super cool to see the ocean and all of the islands at dusk. The only thing is we all started running to get to the viewpoint before sunset and if you know me, you know that I am NOT a runner. Especially in chacos and a backpack. I'm positive I looked like a complete dork, but what else is new?? After the viewpoint on Victoria Peak, we went back down the mountain and took a ferry from the island back to the side of Hong Kong that our hotel was on. The ferry ride was super cool because they have these boats called "junk boats" but they honestly look like pirate ships and I really wanted to see Jack Sparrow or something. It was super cool to have the city in the background and then to have pirate ships in front. Talk about aesthetic. Then a group of guys and I went to this super cool spot that had a perfect view of the city at night. We took some sick pics with each other and then headed back to the hotel, where the Ladies Market is. The Ladies Market is this street market where you can barter for things to get them super cheap. They had some cute knick knacks there but 1. I'm horrible at bartering and 2. I didn't think any of it was really worth my money, so I didn't get anything. I know. I'm lame. But I'm not broke so that's cool!!

Okay the next day was probably my favorite.

We got to go to the LDS Hong Kong temple!!! It was so nice to go do temple work again. It's always refreshing to do service in the Lord's temple. I had the opportunity to talk to a woman doing baptisms with me and she was from India. She said that the Hong Kong temple is the closest temple to her and she and her husband don't get to come very often so when they do, they pretty much do everything that you can at the temple. It was cool to hear about how they still make it a priority to come to the temple even though it is so far away from them. Truly inspirational to me. It made me so grateful to have temples so close to where I live. The temple was absolutely gorgeous inside and out. It had a beautiful simplicity to it that I just really loved. After the temple we went to the mission office so we could change into street clothes. When we were there we ran into some elders playing basketball and we got to talk to them for awhile, I think they were surprised to see so many white people in their office building haha. Just a little piece of home for them (they were from Idaho and Utah).

After the temple, a huge group of us went to Lamma Island, one of the many islands around Hong Kong. It's this little fisherman village island and it was SO COOL. We took a ferry to get there and there were all of these cute little boats docked on the harbor. We ate at this restaurant with a beautiful view of the ocean. Wow just writing about the ocean gets me excited!!! I'm smiling so much right now hahaha I'm so lame. We walked through this market to get to the beach and we waded around in the ocean. How have I not been to the ocean before?!?!?!! (I mean I've been landlocked my whole life so I guess that's how) but WOW it's so cool!!! I was so genuinely happy yesterday it was so good oh my lanta. Now I know why I got made fun of for not seeing the ocean. After I got over the fact that I was actually in the ocean, a group of us went exploring around these huge rocks on the side of beach. We went out on these rocks in the ocean, then we sort of rock climbed up to this super cool spot. I loved it because I was (sort of) rock climbing next to the ocean. It was way cooler than it sounds. I'm just horrible at describing things. Super neat though. We hung out and explored for awhile until it was time to leave. Then we walked back and looked through the shops and such. There were actually a lot of cool little artisan things but boy oh boy were they overpriced. Ya girl can't spend all of her money on a painted rock. But honestly, the island just had a super cool atmosphere and I would not be opposed to going back one day.

All in all, Hong Kong was amazing. Also a lot of people speak english there so that was a blessing, I was actually able to communicate with people around me!! 10/10 would live in Hong Kong.

Cities and Temples and Markets Oh My

My first week in China has come to close everyone! And wow it honestly feels like I've been here for such a long time.

This week I got to tour around the SYSU East campus with some of the Chinese students and some friends on the study abroad. Their buildings are much more spread out than the buildings on BYU so it was a lot of walking, but it's okay, I have to work off all of the food I'm eating somehow right? We probably walked around for like 3 hours, but it was so cool to get to know the campus as a whole, rather than just knowing the building we have class in. It made me feel more connected to the university.

The next day, in my global leadership class, we had a team building activity. In our teams we had to build the tallest tower out of paper and tape. Now out of 20 people on an engineering study abroad, not one of us is a civil engineer. Honesty hour: my team didn't win, our tower actually fell over one second before time was up so that was awkward, BUT we totally had the most fun, so I count that as a win. After class was done and after we had lunch, a couple friends and I walked around this little alleyway market next to the Go-Go (the food court where we ate). It was exactly what I expected from a Chinese market, so that was cool. Later that night a huge group of us went to downtown Guangzhou and got dinner and then walked around the city. We got to see this super cool fountain show where the fountain did different things to the beat of the music. (It sounds lame when I explain it but it was way cool, trust me). Then after the fountain show, we walked to the Guangzhou tower, which lights up different colors at night. Super cool. I learned that the tower was built to literally only be a tourist attraction. There's no other purpose to it. I think it's hilarious, but still cool nonetheless. Anyways, a ton of buildings in Guangzhou have super cool lights on them. Like one of them has a dancing person on it. Like it's just straight up dancing on the side of the building. I wish I could do that. It's a super cool place at night, I absolutely love it. When we were all taking pictures by with the Guangzhou tower in the background while I was waiting in line to get my picture taken, the Chinese woman getting her picture taken ran up to me and started taking pictures with me. It was so funny oh my gosh. Definitely felt super cool, not going to lie. 

The next day was pretty wild. After class we took a field trip to the Western Han Nanyue King Tomb Museum and a Buddhist temple. The museum was pretty cool because we actually got to walk inside the tomb itself. It was relatively small compared to the tombs of emperors but this one had some interesting stuff in it. First of all, one of the side rooms was dedicated to the remains of one of the king's concubines. She didn't even look pretty, she just looked like a bunch of rocks, I don't know what he saw in her. There was also a kitchen and some storage rooms in the tomb. This man was so ready for the afterlife. He was also quite the player; in the museum we saw that he had a "concubine of the right" and a "concubine of the left", then 2 other concubines that weren't given the concubine title on the plaque but they had the symbol of the concubine or something like that. What a guy. 

After the museum, we went to a Buddhist temple and it was super interesting. There was a large Buddha right at the front and when people arrived they left incense at the base and prayed to it. They had other buildings as you walked into the temple grounds. One was dedicated to what I think was a prayer. They were singing something and they would kneel and then stand up in a certain pattern. Then there was a huge building right next to that one, which was home to 3 extremely large and fancy Buddhas. There were places for people to pray around the entire display. It had a very peaceful atmosphere and it was very nice to see others practicing their religion and to see what they believed in. There was a building next to that one, which was dedicated to reading scripture in a quiet environment. Then around the temple grounds they had flowers, statues, and places to rest. Overall it was a great experience. I love getting to know other religions and I love seeing what others believe. It's so eye-opening. 

After the temple, we walked around an outside market. Some friends and I were looking for lunch and so we decided to check out this underground place. Like we literally had to take an escalator down to get there. It was super sketchy though. First of all there wasn't an escalator back up that we could see, then when we got down there it was a bunch of old, empty jewelry cases then like 2 people sitting at a table. Also the lights were super dim. We had to take another escalator down to an even sketchier area to get there but we talked about it for a little bit and after a worker tried so incredibly hard to get us to go down there, we decided to leave. We didn't really feel like getting mugged that day. We ended up getting hot pot, which is where you cook the meat yourself and you add a bunch of stuff into the pot, like mushrooms, potatoes, cilantro, etc. It was delicious. 

Yesterday we went to visit a company that manufactures aluminum bottles for hairspray and stuff like that. We actually got to see how they're made, which was pretty cool. And the people there were so so nice to us. It incredible what machinery can do nowadays. I'll throw in some pictures from that because my description of how it's made would be so incorrect. 

Dang that was long, but thanks for sticking around if you read it all! China is the coolest and I love it more and more each day. Shout out to my parents for being the kindest people on the planet and allowing me to come here, they're the best :).

(Lots of pictures on this one, be prepared)

First Days in China!

It's honestly still unreal that I'm actually here. We're based out of Guangzhou right now in Sun Yat-Sen University and it's in southern China so it's hot and humid. Even though I'm sweating a lot I'm loving it! Guangzhou is in it's rainy season right now so if I leave the hotel without an umbrella I'll get soaked. I guess it's a good thing I enjoy the rain :)

I got here on Sunday morning and by morning I mean at 2am, granted with jetlag it wasn't too bad. I got to the hotel around 3:45 am and then it was sort of a wild night. I went to plug something in my room but I guess they wired the hotels weird (they're kind of jank but "when in China" am I right?) and so my power blew out. I was pretty much wandering around my room blind for 3 minutes until I could find my phone and then go to the front desk to tell them about how my lights didn't work. The lady at the front desk barely spoke english and I don't speak any Chinese Mandarin so after a little while I was able to explain with hand motions what happened and she moved me to a different room for the night. So that night I got 2 hours of sleep because we had to go to church pretty early the next day. Church is pretty interesting in China. So because of the government, we aren't allowed to meet with the locals, so we went to an international ward, which means only people visiting or living in China with visas can attend. It's against the law for locals to attend our church services and it's illegal for us to attend their church services. We also aren't allowed to mention our church at all because that's considering proselyting, which is also against the law. Anyways, church was held inside a hotel because they don't have chapels here. There were maybe 70 people in the Guangzhou branch and 25 of those people were from my BYU group, so they are low in numbers. After church we went back to the hotels, we changed, and then went and walked around downtown Guangzhou. A couple of us took a ferry tour on the river and it was only 2 yuan, which is about 20 cents in US dollars, so it was pretty cheap. Guangzhou reminds me a little bit of home (Chicago). Chicago is still much larger, but Guangzhou has a river in the city similar to Chicago, and a lot of skyscrapers. Don't worry I still prefer Chicago to Guangzhou but I think a huge part of that is because the majority of people back home speak the same language as me hahaha. The language barrier is making things tough for me here, but I shall prevail. Since Sunday was our first day in China, my professors told us that we weren't allowed to go to sleep until 9pm in order to help us get over jetlag. And man oh man let me tell you, it was SO ROUGH. By 7pm I was already struggling, so at 8:45 I started prepping myself for sleep and right when it turned 9:00 I was in bed and I knocked out. Best sleep ever.

On Monday we started class! We live on the South campus of Sun Yat-Sen University but we have class in the east campus so we have to take a 30 minute bus ride to get there. So when we arrived we had the opportunity to meet the Chinese students that are doing this program with us and they're so cool!!! I learned today that SYSU has a 1% acceptance rate....isn't that crazy??? We got put into teams during class today for our projects and mine is seriously the best team. I'm so stoked to work with them and be friends with them. Afterwards we got lunch then we headed back to south campus. Today was a lot more lax than Sunday, I did some reading for class and then walked around Guangzhou with my friends Eric, Nick, and Jonny. Eric and Nick speak Chinese fluently so they're great when it comes to translating, and Jonny is the professor's son and he's been to China like 7 times (3 or 4 times were on this study abroad), so he knew cool places to go and stuff. Solid dudes.

One more thing. Everything is so cheap here because of the exchange rate from USD to Yuans. I can get a 1.5L water bottle for 4 yuan, which is about 58 cents. I can't even get a normal sized water bottle for that amount in America.

Also I'm posting a lot of pictures on all of my posts because China is rad.