Free Candy, Massages and Sunshine

Garth and I went on a Walmart run on Friday. As we were waiting for the bus a car pulled up and said Chinese words to us… the only one we recognized was the name of the town we were going to. We decided to get in.

Because accepting rides from strangers is always good and safe... Luckily it all turned out for the best! They dropped us off right at the door of WalMart and wouldn’t accept our money. Always listen to the spirit if it says its okay to ride with strangers… but don’t accept FREE CANDY.

We bought lots of things we had been wanting for out kitchen and then hopped on a bus home.

"milk" and eggs are not refrigerated ... ever. 

The driver was blazing up a ciggy RIGHT in front of me the whole way. 45 delicious minutes of secondhand smoke… YUM!

When we arrives back home, we unpacked our haul and cleaned the BEJEEESUS out of our kitchen. We cleaned EVERYTHING. I mean EVERYTHING. Not just like cleaned it up… I mean DEEP cleaned. BLEACH was involved. We haven’t had time since arriving and from the state of it I don’t think it had been cleaned for LITERALLY YEARS. There were foods that had expired in 2003. I am not lying. Every dish, pot and bowl, every countertop, cupboard and shelve, under the sink, the fridge and freezer… EVEYTHING was cleansed. The floor was scrubbed with a bristle brush on hand and knee. Then everything was dried, given a place and set in order. It took long but now I feel happy every time I am in there because it is no longer a disgusting grimy cave of gross.

This is a picture from a couple weeks ago but it's the only "before" picture
I have.

Trash

The next day was a rainy one. We went to Nanchang (the bigger city that’s 2 hours away) and it was pretty cool. Noelle and I decided to try out our BEAUTIFUL and not at all tacky false lashes!

Pretty City:

We got massages in a dingy little place that’s sign read “blind man massages”. A more accurate sign would have said “come let us bruise your necks!”. I have never been one for massages, I’m all about the back tickles and head rubs. Plus I am … pretty ticklish… so at some points it got interesting. The lady informed us we all had bad necks and I wanted to say “yeah now we do!”. Only joking, it wasn’t THAT bad.

After my massage I popped my head out of the mattress hole and my lashes had become disheveled… I thought maybe I had gone blind from my blind man massage! There was a man who waited in the waiting room twith us while we watched Chinese cartoons. He was trying to teach us Chinese but we didn't know which words he was teaching us. Did that stop him? NO! he would just say the words to us until we finally repeated them and nodded our heads... it was quite funny. All in all it was an adventure and we laughed as we recounted our specific torturous moments.

This is Noelles face from under the bed. hahahaha

We ate at a restaurant and I liked EVERYTHING we ordered, which never happens. I usually like half of the dishes at best. Nanchang is where it’s AT! Now I know why some people say “Chinese food is so good”. I have been sick all week from the food at school so it was beyond wonderful to eat. REALLY eat.

We went to an arcade and some stores. I bought a cool denim shirt with Bart Simpsons face all over it and little yarn booties for my Hope-Chest.

Look who welcomed us into the Arcade! :D

Women watch shoes like guys watch football

Tessa bought Honey

For Ror

Mostly we just went around and saw the things to be seen! It was beautiful and the trees were very green from all the rain. We grabbed some ice cream at KFC and my companeros got Starbucks. Noelles foot got attacked by a bus door. SAD FACE! She is really tough though and limped around til we caught a bus home. The only other money I spent was when there was also a really cool Chipster (Chinese-hipster) playing acoustic guitar on the overpass. He stole my heart so I gave him money hoping to bribe love from him. He winked so it was money well spent.  It was a good day.

2ne1 playing on all the TVs in Walmart!
(phoebe i hope you get as stoked as i did)
(/i also hope you do the little 2 N E 1 hand thing like i did)

The door that tried to take Noelle's foot as a blood sacrifice

I love kate middleton so I creeper took a picture of this girl reading an article about KATE the GREAT!

Sometimes people in the street see me taking pictures...
and hate me.
A lot.

Garth finally got the Ok from our branch president to pass the sacrament (everything is done online and through phones so it’s been interesting) and so on Sunday I got to partake of the sacrament. It was lovely. All of the church meetings (done through conference phone calls) have been really great. The lessons are very well prepared and I love the spirit it sends me off with for the week.

Also there were actually CLEAR BLUE SKIES!!!! For a whole like… 20 minutes!

I cut up my pineapple, opened the windows and caught up on some journal writing.

This week was really a nice one. I’m sure it was helped by any prayers sent my way so thank you all so much. I am so grateful for this opportunity and how much it is helping me grow.

 On with another week!

Happy Tuesday from China. 

EXTRAS:

A really big Cheeto

A boy we caught in our rooms sulking on the stairs

An umbrella I bought because it reminded me of the TARDIS

A cute little kid's shirt for sale

TRIX fruit roll ups.
That's right...
*pelvic thrust*

"5 little Monkeys"
by one of my students