4th of July and Shanghai

So I figured after being here for a month (almost down to the day)  I should blog!  well china is extremely different.  You realize what your history teachers meant when they say that America is a melting pot.  I am beginning to adjust, but there are definitely things that I will never get completely used to. One thing that makes it hard is that most the foreigners go home for the summer, and no one else speaks english.  I met one girl named Emily right when school was ending here.  We were taking a tour of the school, and her mom was there, and heard us speaking english, so she asked if we were new, and where we lived, and it turns out they live in our compound just down the street from us, so she brought her kids over to meet us, and she has a girl (Emily) that is my age.  So Emily showed me some places by our house, and then I got to go to the last day of school with her, and out to lunch with a lot of the other kids so that I could meet some other people.  It was really great to meet people, but it also was a huge reality check for me.  Saying Utah is a bubble is an understatement.  They are all very nice, but their standards are all a lot lower than what I am used to.  There is no age limit for drinking here, so every weekend all the kids go out drinking.  Looks like I am going to have lots of weekends spent at home!  As long as they respect me and my standards and keep that kind of stuff away from me I should be fine.  But everyone has left for the summer, so it doesn't even make a huge difference that I met people.  for once I cannot wait until school starts!  Oh and I love going to church!  Our young womens leader got us these notebooks, and all our handouts and notes for the lesson go in the notebook, it is super cute! I love it!

So we actually celebrated the 4th of July!  until the day of we didn't quite know what we were going to do, or if we were going to do anything for it.  My dad got a new grill just a few days before, and if you know anything about my dad, you know he was so excited to use it :)  my dad is like a kid in a candy store when he talks about grilling or smoking meat.  The burgers were a huge deal because you have to go all over to get all the supplies for a burger that you would take you 15 minutes to get in walmart.  You have to go to about 3 stores, one of which is about 40 minutes away.  The guest list was unlike one you typically have in Utah, we had a handful of Americans, a Brit, a Canadian, a Japanese, and a Malaysian.  We had an amazing fireworks!  They were the kind you only see in a firework show!  We had HUGE aerials :)  our driver, and Bran were so excited about the fireworks :)  it was pretty funny to see Bran, he would set one off and just go running. we also had a roll of 8000 fireworks that took about 1 minute 30 seconds to go off completely, it was amazing!  We even played 'Stadium of Fire' to complete the experience.  It was super depressing not being able to go to Stadium of Fire, especially with Scotty McCreery, but I surprisingly was not disappointed!  You really appreciate the freedoms you have in America when you have a lot of them taken away.  I couldn't even be posting this in China without a VPN.

Shaved ice with mango

On Saturday we went to Shanghai for the day.  It was a lot of fun! We rode the "fast train" there, which goes almost 200 mph.  It take an hour to two hours (depending on the amount of stops) to get there by train, and 4 hours to get there by car.  We ate at a dumpling place for lunch it was pretty good, I have definitely been having a hard time with the food though. We did get a really good shaved ice thing with mango on it!

Pear TV Tower

See that building back there
with the hole in the top? That is
 the tallest building in China

We saw the tallest building in china, it is huge! and towers over all the other buildings, but there is another building right next to it that almost looks taller depending on your perspective. Then we went to the Pearl TV Tower, and that was really cool!  The line was forever long though.  We had to wait in line to buy the tickets, then wait in line to go through security, then wait in line to go on an elevator then wait another line for another elevator, it felt like ages!  But when we got up there it was totally worth it!  we were 350 meters up in the air at the highest point.

Tiana and I on the observation deck

I've got to say the last floor we went to was my favorite! they had a glass floor that you could walk out on and stand above the city.  It was amazing!!  I didn't think it was scary at all, but both my mom and my dad were freaking out.  It was really funny.  My mom was holding on to Tiana and I's hands so she could make it on to the glass, and she is taking baby steps and at one point yells "Let go of my hand! let go of my hand!"  I wasn't even holding on to hers, she had a death grip around mine though.  My dad was trying to take baby steps out to the railing, and then this little chinese boy reaches out his hand to my dad to help him out, so my dad grabbed it. It was hilarious! Even Marissa who has the most unreasonable fears about everything was completely fine with it.  It was actually pretty funny, some of the Chinese do really funny poses in their pictures, so Marissa would watch them, and then run to me and say "Mikayla! take a picture of me!"  and then do one of the poses she saw the natives doing.  It was amazing up there!!

A lady trying to get her little boy to take
a picture with Declan.  You can't tell here,
but he is wearing split pants.

Everyone loved Declan.  It was super funny!  We all get a ton of people coming up to us to take pictures, but people ask to get their picture with Declan more than anyone else. It takes about twice as long to get anywhere because of everyone wanting pictures.  I am pretty sure that more pictures were taken of us than thing else in Shanghai the whole day.  We have people walking up to us asking to have our picture every 20 minutes, and virtually the whole time we have people snapping pictures from a far. . . or not so far away in some cases.  Occasionally you would see people get right up in Declan's face and snap a picture. Everyone always wants their kids to get pictures with Declan.  There was one group of about 3 people that came up, counted us, looked at our parents in shock, and said "leo ga hai za?!" while giving us the 'hang loose' sign, which means "6 kids?!" and the 'hang loose' sign is 6 when you are counting on your fingers.  Then they started looking at Declan, who was asleep in his stroller, and start waving and saying "hello" (one of the only words most Chinese know) and she started pinching his cheek trying to wake him up!  my dad told her that he wanted his baby to sleep, so then she left him alone.  surprisingly enough that isn't the first time that has happened. I am pretty sure "Leo ga hai za" was one of the first things I learned how to say since moving here.  It does get really old after a while though. I don't like going out much unless we are sight seeing because of it.

We were going to go to the aquarium there too, but because it took so long to go through the tv tower we didn't make it.  Instead we walked through this mall that is all like top of the line stores, everything way out of our budget, and everyone is just staring at us it is so funny!

Then we had reservations at the Shangru la buffet, which is like the buffet of all buffets.   They have food from all over the world.  You eat like a king there.  I've gotta say the desert was my favorite :)  it was heavenly.  I have also realized after this and when I came to China for spring break that I really like Indian food, except for the spiciness.  I love nan with curry, but I have to mix A TON of yogurt in with the curry so it isn't too spicy, but after that, it is amazing!  They had so much desert it was unreal, there was fondue, crepes, sorbet, little servings of different deserts like pies and cakes and creme brulee and things like that.  It was all amazing!!  then you got a box of candies to take home with you.

All in all it was a really good day!  and I am looking forward to Thursday because we are heading to Beijing.   Probably the only thing my dad has ever wanted more than moving to China is going to the great wall.  He has been trying to get to the great wall the past 6 years that he has worked here, but every time he has planned to stay extra long in China so he could make it to Beijing the ended up needing him for one thing or another, so finally he is making it there, and he is super excited because we are going for his birthday.  My dad has gotten the ultimate present, first we move china, and now we are going to the great wall (hey dad my birthday is only 5 months and 8 days away. . . approximately).

Oh so today we had our Chinese tutor over and we were learning beverages today, and so we were telling him different drinks that we wanted to know, and we were asking about root beer, but they don't have root beer here (which is basically the saddest thing ever)  so we were trying to explain it to him, but there really isn't any soda that they would know that tastes anything like it.  He was also confused about the beer part in root beer because it doesn't contain any alcohol.  It was kind of funny!  I really do miss root beer though.  occasionally you can find it at grocery stores, but my mom has never thought to buy it when she has seen it.

I am still struggling majorly in China, and there are not words to describe how much I want to go home, but maybe it isn't so bad? I think that if I keep saying that China might get a little more bearable.  I definitely have my days, some are better than others.  I think days where it is more of a touristy day, and we have our dad to translate are a lot better.  The days that are like "hey you live here whether you like it or not, so have fun struggling!" are hard.  Really hard.