It's officially
FEBRUARY and I've never been so mixed with emotions before. I finally got the email from ILP that had our flight information. I leave on the 23rd (happy birthday jack) at 7:45 pm. We fly into Korea, then from there we fly to HONG KONG. It is still unreal to me that I'll be living in China for 4 months. (I'm totally grinning as I write this) and even better, I'll be living in china with my best friend, lynsie jae. ILP (international language program) is giving us the chance to travel in Hong Kong for the first few days of our trip. The only way we can travel in Hong Kong is at the beginning of our trip...due to problems with visas, we can't re-enter Hong Kong once we've entered mainland china....So I'm stoked for that.
So here are some pictures of what I will be able to take with my OWN camera once I get there!
as a teacher for the boarding school I'll be living at...they give us vacation time. With these weeks that we have off, we get to plan our own vacations. One that we've planned is to go to Beijing and see the GREAT WALL OF CHINA! I can't wait to actually take real pictures of this on my camera....this one is courtesy of google!
in beijing we'll see Tiananmen Square....and do some AWESOME shopping. They have the best knockoffs ever! jeans, purses, rolex watches, northface gear....oh man I can't wait. As teachers we have to fill 1 of our 2 suitcases with supplies to teach with. do you know that that means??? yup. I'll have 1 suitcase empty for the trip home. one word....SHOPPING. any requests????
this is a sweet picture of Hong Kong...can't wait to start off our trip there!
now for the city I'll be living in! Zhongshon, Guzhen China. I believe this is the view from my apartment....I stole these pictures off of the ILP website.
once again...another stolen picture, so I don't know who this is. But I wanted to give you a glimpse of what my life will consist of for the next 4 months. TEACHING KIDS!
a nearby park...
reason #1 why I hardly blog. I'm not too savvy with blogging tricks...so these pictures are totally NOT in the order I'd like them to be in...oh well! (at least I blogged...right??)
apparently the school I'll be at has a swimming pool! SO cute! The kids I'll be teaching actually live at the school, so I bet this is where they spend their time outside of school when it gets hot and humid over there!
This is the picture that really gets me giddy to go. Look how cute this school is! This is the boarding school we'll be teaching at. The advisors that have been doing our training for ILP told us that since the kids live at the school, we have the chance to go tuck our kids in at night. awesome right?!? (still smiling as I write this :) )
the outside view of my apartment complex.
and the inside of our apartment. Well at least from what the ILP website shows. Once I get to China I'll take pictures of everything so you can REALLY see where I'll be living! I will have my
LAPTOP (merry christmas....absolutely LOVE it!!) so I can
skype and email to my hearts content. BUT, (there's always a but!) the government has blocked some websites. So goodbye
facebook and
my blog for 4 months. But don't worry my blog stalkers! I'll send out blogtype emails with pictures and all...I just can't post it on this.
So here you go...probably my longest blog yet. Be proud! I just needed to post this to fill you all in. I am SO excited to go. I have been looking forward to having a chance to travel like this since I can remember. Thanks to mom and dad for supporting me and encouraging me to get out there and see the world. and a BIG thanks to lynsie. Holy cow girl...we're moving to China!!! I wouldn't want to go with anyone else!! I'm so glad you're as crazy as me to move there!! ;) I'm excited to go on this "service abroad" and get the chance to interact with people of a different culture. I know I'm going to learn SO much about myself and I'm excited for this life changing experience. I've had times where I get super nervous and think I'm crazy to move to the other side of the world....literally...but I know that I would TOTALLY regret it if I skipped out. I'm going to miss my family, my amazing friends here in Orem, I'm going to miss Trent, and I'm going to miss working at the Brent Brown Dealerships. I love it down here. absolutely love living here....but I've been needing something new, a change, and China is it. I know it. I could keep rambling on and on about China, trust me...it'll be all I talk about the next few months so get ready people. Anyways...just a few thoughts on my life for the next few months.
the countdown begins...CHINA T{minus} 21 DAYS...
