Sunday on La Grande Beijing

Happy self-proclaimed Fast Sunday because you don’t want to break the Sabbath day by buying food on
Sunday!

I started to justify in my head why it’s totally fine to buy food—that we don’t have a fridge, that I really
need to exchange money anyway, that I’m going to church, stuff like that. But then I remembered the
example my mom set for me when we went to New York my sophomore year. Before the trip, we went
and bought things to keep us satisfied all day. And we lived off of Pop Tarts, beef jerky, and granola bars.
And I have felt so blessed because of that.

Due to unforeseen expenditures of my time, I packed with no thought toward the arrival tour or Sunday
foods. Last night, when I actually figured out what day it is, it hit me that I’d have to make this choice.
Thank you Mom, for teaching me what is right. It’s the accumulation of simple choices like this that
foundationally strengthen your character.

So I ended up ducking into store after store, trying to find some non-perishable foods that don’t need
refrigeration. After perusing every store along the entire alley our hostel is in, I said a small prayer in
my heart that I’d be able to find food. Thank goodness for the overpriced loaf of stale-ish—but sweet-
ish—bread I was able to find! And thank goodness I have a creepy obsession with peanut butter (can an
obsession with peanut butter be creepy?) and packed two jars!

Lesson learned. It’s not even that if I had bought food on the Sabbath I would be a bad person, or that it
is even the wrong decision. I just feel that because I had the courage to do so, I have been blessed with a
greater portion of the Spirit today. The gospel is more additive than subtractive. Though we may not be
doing things to regress from where we have come, we aren’t progressing, which is absolutely imperative
to do if we intend to someday reach our full potential.

So I fasted breakfast and lunch, then wrote in my journal and took a slight nap (on my journal…) before I
broke my fast and ate a deliciously stale peanut butter sandwich.

We did have church this morning at 10:30, so we braved the ever-ominous and entirely different/
terrifying world of THE SUBWAY to travel to it. Spending time in cities like New York and Chicago, I feel,
have made me relatively subway-savvy. But it certainly helps when the networks aren’t as extensive as
Beijing, there aren’t half as many sweaty bodies, and everything isn’t written in a language that looks
like a chicken got ink on its foot and hopped around.

We did survive, however. I was tempted to buy a shirt that says I climbed the Great Wall, but I would be
thrilled to find a shirt that says I survived the Beijing subway! With the exclamation point, of course, for
added enthusiasm. It’s probably not that much of a feat considering we mostly just followed the group
of about forty people we were with, BUT STILL. I SURVIVED THE BEIJING SUBWAY!

After emerging from the depths, we walked a little ways and entered a nice building where we
proceeded to cram 15 people at a time into an elevator to get to the fourth floor. What a sweet miracle
it was to see those tacky bulletin boards posted outside church offices that feature over-zealous posters
for activities, the baptisms for the month, and a few church messages. In English! INCREDIBLE! It was

like having church in an office building, though, which was more interesting than not. I was surprised to
see how many people showed up! I met a sweet lady who’s been serving a mission with her husband in
Hong Kong for the past nine months, and came to visit Beijing for the week. Also, GET THIS! Anyone here
know Gidianny Gutierrez?! Well she taught Relief Society! She’s been here for nine months also with
her husband and as I stared at her I knew I knew her and then it hit me like a BRICK. She has the same
face, same voice, same way of writing on the board… OH, she was in my seminary class when I was a
sophomore! And then all of a sudden I remembered she wrote Chinese on the board often!

Guys. I have a creepy memory. It’s impeccable. Chances are, I remember every single detail about you.
So watch out. Don’t cross me or it’ll be etched in my memory forever. I’ve decided that I have been
blessed to be very perceptive about people and how they act…I probably know things about you that
YOU don’t even know. There are some that will testify to this. I might be making it up. But don’t pop my
balloon or pin-the-tail-on-the-DONKEY cause “I like that about myself and I like myself and I have a lot of
other really great qualities” (well-spoken, Marcel the Shell).

But yeah. Church was beautiful. The speakers talked a lot about faith, which is something I’ve really
come to learn more about these past few months, and I’m sure I’ll come to develop more of in the next
few years. Which is terrifying, because the fear of the unknown is prevalent in my mind. But although
I may have simply developed theories that haven’t transferred to my everyday life, I’ve learned about
faith as a real facet of our minds and lives.

Most recently, I’ve come to accept that fear and faith cannot coexist. I’ve heard it a million times, but
never truly grasped the concept. If I have a mustardseed amount of faith, fear is immediately dispelled.
Think about it. I’m afraid for what the next four months may hold for me—what trials, insecurities, and
shortcomings may take hold of me. But as soon as I take a step back, take ONE breath, and imagine the
power of the Atonement guiding me through the next four months, I feel fine. Granted, my faith has
a lot of improving to do, but I can repeat that process as often as I need to feel at peace with what my
future holds.

Faith is a hope for the future—a hope that we can move mountains that loom over us. It is more than
simply enduring to the end, though. It’s pressing forward with a brightness of hope and with optimism
and excitement for where our path will take us next.

Thank you, Beijing 1st Branch, for letting my join your ward on Sunday. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for
answering my prayers so quickly. Thank you, family, for loving me despite my many flaws. Thank you,
Shelby, for being the best China companion anyone could ask for. Thank you, concerned citizen, for
taking the time to read the musings of a girl roaming around a Communist country. Thank you, Asian
babies, for being s’darn cute. Thank you, whoever that was out in the hall, for terrifying me with your
strikingly incredible giant-hungry-bird-is-going-to-attack-me sound effect. Wait a minute. Yeah, that just
happened. I’m not even concerned. Hi.

But really. I am so blessed. Hey. Have a little faith. Because life is an adventure. And we’d do well to
remember that it’s the process that counts—not the event. Wise words from a pretty solid teacher I
may or may not have taken classes from for three consecutive years, and probably spent more time with

than my friends. Hi.

Anyway.

Bye.

P.S. I always start writing these posts with a full-intention to proofread and polish when I’m done. Am
I about to do that? Newwwpppp. Sorry for grammatical structural defects, misspellings (silly of you to
think I’d misspell anything), or me simply using the wrong word. I’m in a foreign country here, where
everything is you want buy honey water melon (it’s DEW, not WATER) and stay door colse. I’m working
on it!

HOLO

Get it? Like, hola? Only holo? Megamind, anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

I quote movies like a BOSS.

Here's the deal. I am in China. And being the first time I've HAD time to actually write a tidbit, like a literal TIDBIT, there's a lot to say. So please forgive me for any brief explanations or A.D.D. writing. It happens more frequently than not.

HI. So, my computer says it's 8:00 in the morning at home. So hey. Have a lovely Saturday! Mine surely was! The time difference is utterly bizarre. The thirteen hour flight was less than admirable. And that's just the fourteen hour consecutive flight, not counting the two hours to LA and the two hours from Seoul to Beijing and the hour bus ride from Beijing to, well, Beijing. Beijing is constructed in several rings, so to get in and out of the cities you have to pass through all six (?) of the rings. I'm actually not entirely sure how it even works.. That's just what I gathered from the kind Jackie Chan who narrated our bus ride.

But. I wanted to gouge my eyeballs out with a chicken leg by the time we got to the hostel. Why the graphic over-exaggeration (no, it really wasn't an over-exaggeration)? Because I had been awake for a solid 25 hours. Not. Ideal. Awake for a solid 25 hours on a flipping plane. Plus? I got about four hours of sleep the night before. Four hours of sleep for 48 hours of day.

Sarcastic comments were exiting my mouth at a rate of 300 km/h. Shelby and I got our delightful room key that looks like a giant SIM card, and popped in our room that may or may not have black mold growing on the shower mat, has a giant centipede living in the drain, a toilet with draining capacity equaling ZERO, and a funtastic rock hard bed that really isn't too different from Wyview. It's a beautiful experience, really.

But we went straight to bed. And slept until 6:00 a.m., when we had to get up and head out to Tiananmen Square. 

Tiananmen Square

There's really not much to say about this. But that it was a nice culture shock as I realized how literally (I misuse 'literally' a lot, but I'm NOT) obsessed these Chinese people are with foreigners. They don't care one bit that you see them staring at you, checking you out, trying to take pictures, and pointing and laughing. I'm not entirely sure if they're legitimately stoked to see a white person with light hair or if they think we're a joke. At any rate, it's just fantastically awkward and lezzz be honest. I haven't put on a lick of makeup (because I normally do?..) or done my hair once and I feel the best I ever have.

"Ohhhh, herrooo, would youu like take peek-choor wis me? You verrryy beautiful."

Oh, welllllll, thank you pal. I take peek-choor wis you anytime.

Plus we're photo-bombing wizards there, because they're all stoked that you were in their picture. 

Back to the story. Tiananmen Square. It was nice. And pretty. And here's a picture.

(INSERT PICTURE ONE, KELSI----which will be inserted in the coming days due to China computer malfunctions....just picture something nice and Tiananmen Square-ish in your head)

The end.

Chinese Museum

I'm not going to lie, museums are on my top-ten of things I love more than most things. But this museum just wasn't fun-tastic. There were four consecutive sets of elevators, which I enjoyed, but the art was just. HEY. HERE'S A VASE. AND HERE'S AN IDENTICAL CERAMIC URN. Here's a Renaissance art exhibit? TEN YUAN. I will not spend 1.5 dollars on your Renaissance exhibit sir! But we did, as previously stated, make about eighteen Chinese peoples' days and also we creeped on Chinese children. Which are incredibly adorable. They have little butt flaps. Like, not even butt flaps. They're huge slits that exposes their butts. It's AMAZING. Google it. Hilarious in six different countries. In my head.

I feel more like a pedophile than ever right now. GASH those kids are cute. People are like,Oh look! Great Wall of China! And I'm like, Oh look! Great selection of Chinese BABIES!

Forbidden City

I really sound like a Debbie Downer. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love it here. Everything about it is amazing. But I'd have to say that full-on immersion in the culture, more than anything, is the most attractive thing about this place. The Forbidden City was huge and beautiful and photogenic, but it was just there. The people, however, are thrillingly impolite, without any sense of a personal bubble, and always smiling and waving and are ecstatic to meet you. Plus they have great shirts that are in English. Just today, there was one that said, "Great Assets, Feel"

...?????

And there was this one:

(INSERT PICTURE---again, just make something up in your head for right now...darn Chinese slow internet)

What. Is. Fouching.

Bye.

(INSERT PICS OF FORBIDDEN CITY...in your head)

Oh. Now I can't even remember what was next.

Um.

Free time? Maybe? Dinner? Foods? Okay. I'll talk about foods.

FOOD

Yes, it was necessary to put it in all caps. Here's the thing. Everything here is flipppppiiinnngggg cheap, so it's hard to know whether paying full price for something is a great deal. But our first breakfast consisted of steamed buns with this bizarre substance in the middle that was more-or-less like molasses. 1 yuan for the bun, about as big as your fist. Oh, how much is 1 yuan? About 25 cents. GREAT!

For lunch we went to a random restaurant that said, 'HAVE ENGLISH MENU.' NATURALLY, we went right in. And Shelby got a whole bunch of tiny leek and pork dumplings for 18 yuan (3 dollars), and I got a soup with leeks and pork in a giant bowl for 10 yuan ($1.50ish). It literally would have been like a $10.00 dish in America. A big holla to fantastic prices!

So Monday night-----. Hold on. It actually wasn't Monday night. It was actually I think Wednesday. Or Thursday. It was just our first real day in Beijing so I refer to it as Monday. ANYWAY. We went to a group dinner before our Kong Fu show. It really wasn't inCREDIBLE, but compared to our Mandarin Cafe Mondays back in K-Town, itwas inCREDIBLE. The rice is so sweet. They also brought out french fries and chicken nuggets? Thanks. Thanks for that. But we sat at our table and there's a giant glass disc in the middle of it where the waitresses set the dishes, and you just swivel the giant glass disc around and use your chopsticks to grab food. Thank goodness for unorthodox Sunday dinners of Chinese food! I can actually use the chopsticks well enough to get by. But Iam grateful the giant lazy susans aren't typical for American homes, because there would be a lot of immaturity involved (mostly on my part) in spinning the glass death trap at a disorderly rate. 

But everything we've eaten here has been an absolute delight. And cheaper than anything you'll ever find in America. I want to live here? ... 

Kong Fu Show

Hahaahaaahahahaha. Seewwwwwww. The Kong Fu show was incredible. They did some absolutely amazing things. I'd like to see cheerleaders at the next football game to do some backhandsprings with no hands--only with the top of their head. Terrifying. As amazing as it was, though, and as loud as the sound effects and lip-synced soundtrack and however bright the lights were, I was gone. It's like being in class in an interesting lecture youknow you have to be awake for but you absolutely cannot get your body and mind to react to the lovely happenings in front of you. 

WOW, those men are really strong and jump really high. And look at that ribbon cascading from the ceiling. Why are there bubbles coming out of the sides? What is the plot line .... heerrreee..... tireeddd...... floating rainbows and Asian children....................................HOW LONG WAS I ASLEEP?! WOW, those men are really strong and jump really high. And look at that ribbon (you get the point. Repeat for, say, the next three hours.)

I used my first squatter for the first time :) If you are unaware of what a 'squatter' is, please, just, Google it. It's the best thing ever, and I feel like Americans should adopt the squatter. Mostly because I feel like I've conquered an unconquerable foe when I get out of the stall alive. It's a lot like peeing in the wild; liberating, unfortunately unsanitary, and a bit awkward when you realize there isn't any toilet paper. But it's fine. Sorryforthegraphicdescription. HASHTAGSORRYI'MNOTSORRY!

And now I'm getting a little bit brain dead. And you're probably extremely bored or have already stopped reading. I'll have to de-dramatize and everything will be brief.

So, Tuesday. Gosh it wasn't Tuesday. Was this yesterday? How long have I been here? I have no sense of time or date. It's incredible.

So the next day.

Great Wall of CHINA

Things they don't tell you about the Great Wall:

A) The hike TO the great wall is up, say, 23 flights of stairs? Ideal, right? Who needs a stair stepper when you can just climb up the mountain on a million uneven stairs? Not I, quoth Jillian Michaels.

B) Despite the bizarre misconception that the wall is relatively flat, it seemed to be an uphill climb the entire time. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! 

C) Scaling walls to get on top of the towers is entirely possible, probable, and phenomenal.

D) Turns out I'm a fantastic bargainer and I got some yellow Ray Bans for 20 yuan. Which equals about $3.15. Granted, they're entirely fake, but they're CUTE. And thingzzz.

E) Asian women hike the great wall in heels. HEELS. HEAVENS ABOVE ARE YOU CRAZY? Yes, yes they are.

F) The view is exactly what the pictures say it is. Be jealous. And also be jealous of the 'foggy' air. Which isn't foggy at all.

G) Did you know there's a TOBAGGAN to get down?! I don't even know if I spelled that right!! It's like the Alpine Slide in Park City. Utterly exciting. But you're not just careening down a mountainside. That would be, the mountainside near THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA! I have a video of it. And if I had more time I'd find a way to upload it to something. Buuuut, just be looking forward to it.

Jade Factory

Lame. I did see some nice pornographic jade statues. Which was...enlightening. All right Janice!

(I encase so many random YouTube/movie references in here. Please. Please get them all.)

Ming Tombs

We didn't actually visit the tombs themselves, but we walked along the sacred pathway. Mostly just because the ambient music provided the perfect atmosphere to take pictures like preteens against giant statues of denaturalized animals. But the walkway was straight and not-too-narrow and encased by willow trees. Good thing my boyfriend was with me so we could have a romantic stroll through the Ming Tombs. OH WAIT.

Then we had free time, I think, which brings me to today.

Sidenote. Why in the world does it smell like nail polish in this lobby? EH.

Summer Palace

Once again, beautiful and massive. We road a DRAGON BOAT. :) Which is exactly what it sounds like. Dragons n' boats.

Silk Factory

Giant infomercial. But I'd really enjoy a real silk blanket. It's like touching a clouuuuddddd. American silk isn't real silk. They use silk like a down, I guess. With a cover over it. And my words are getting disjointed because it's late and I'm exhausted.

But yeah.

Shooopppppppiiiinnngggggggg

IS SO SATISFYING. Bargaining is the greatest thing ever. If it doesn't get personal, you're not doing it right!! Haha not really. But really. It's epic on so many levels. I can't even explain. There's gotta be some kind of Wikipedia article on it. Got some Toms for about $7.00. Got some quality headphones for about $7.00. It's like, the greatest thing ever. Even though I hate shopping, on so many levels, bargaining is a game. The Chinese ladies are CRAZY.

But they really can get mean and nasty. And shove you out of their little shop if you offer a price so offensively low they don't even want to deal with you. But it's fun.

I also rode the subway home, which was quite the ordeal. There's nothing quite as terrifying as a China subway. But it was also great. After three days of no Internet, I'm so grateful for it. I'm not too worried. So Mom and Dad. Don't be worried. I just literally don't have time or the means to write a lot. And now I FINALLY understand what it's like for missionaries on P-day. There really isn't enough time to write everything. So consider this to be the most comprehensive email you'll get, because even writing about this place won't give it the justice it deserves. I can't describe in enough depth the unique smell, facial expressions, and general demeanor of the people here. But everyone should experience something like this. I already feel more independent, confident, and prepared for what lies in my future. And I've developed an amazing store of pure and unadulterated love for the people here.

I'm excited to go to church tomorrow and stuff! More to come in the future! And please, email me. I'd love to hear from you :) Chances are, if you're reading this post, you're either creepy beyond all measure or I thoroughly enjoy you as a human being. I apologize for writing too much, and I apologize for writing too little. Basically, yes, I'm alive, yes, I love it, and yes, my bowels and sleeping schedule are askew. 

Anyhow. You're cute. Bye.

p.s. this is Kelsi...who now feels like a complete idiot when it comes to posting blogs.  Who out there can help me so the background of the words looks normal and not white?? Email me (kelsijoi@gmail.com). Shanks

It's a Miley Cyrus kind of trip.

HOPPED ON THE PLANE TO LAX WITH MY DREAM AND MY CARDIGAN

WELCOME TO THE LAND OF FAME EXCESS (I really don't know the lyrics.. that's what I sing?) AM I GONNA FIT IN?

No, on account that I am going to Chiners.

Forget list:

iPod, which means no Avatar: The Last Airbender on the flight to.

Lame.

So, as my last will and testament, in case our flight crashes, hereby relinquish all my shoes to my mother. And my nearly full Cafe Rio punch card I bequeath to Sara. And I guess Miles can have my animal shirts.

Other than that, you can garage sale everything. Please bury me in satin. Lay me down in a bed of roses. Sink me in the river, at dawn. SEND ME AWAY WITH THE WORDS OF A LOVE SONG. Sorry for all the song references.

Too morbid?

SEE YA NEVER.