Trip to the Philippines! Going to church.

After not having slept for a good couple days, I slept wonderfully through the night. I was excited to go to church today in a real church building!

(By way of note, while I was in Hong Kong, I bought a new phone [Galaxy Nexus]. I have loved playing with the phone, and while the camera on the phone is not the best, it is still quite good. What's more is that any picture I take using my phone automatically uploads and is super easy to post here on Blogger. That being the case, I will mostly just be showing images with commentary. Hope you are OK living without my often sarcastic or snarky remarks, but with my limited time, this is a better way for me to show what I have been doing.)

This is the view I woke up to. Needless to say, it did not take me long to fall in love with Baguio, Philippines.

Arbee and Jazmine decided to go to church with us today!

Panoramic view from my window.

Loida grabbing the first flower she sees upon leaving the house. 

Arbee smiling

I told him to smile big!

It has rained every day I have been here so far.

Loida ready for dinner.

Rain.

This is a note that Jasmine wrote to me. Probably the sweetest note I have ever received from a girl (I suppose technically it was from both Arbee and Jazmine though). It came folded somewhat like a crude paper airplane and this is what it says: "Open - From: Arbee and Jazmine. Directed by Arbee and Jazmine. | We love you so much. Open. Your handsome. Tito Mckey. I love my family and tito Mckey. From: Jazmine and Arbee. | I love you!

Tito means uncle.
Also of note, I am usually saddened when people spell my name McKey (after me telling them how to correctly spell it), but when a 5 and 6 year old boy and girl spell it that way, I think it is quite endearing (and a bit impressive!)

Church was great. It was nice to talk to missionaries and be in a real church building. After church we all went home to eat lunch and relax for the rest of the day.

Traveling in China - Day 8 - Longzhou (龙州)

Riding a bus through the countryside 

In the morning we woke up then went to the bus station so we could wait in line to get our bus tickets. After waiting about 20 minutes, the lady at the counter told us to follow a young man, he led us to a section of the bus station where we could wait for the bus. He explained that they did not sell tickets where we were going but that we would just have to wait. Our things were still back at the hotel, so we went and got them just so we could return and wait for a bus.

Traveling in China - Day 1 - Off to Guangxi 广西

Here in China school doesn't get out around Christmas time. Fortunately for me, this past Christmas was on a Sunday, so I had the day off, but I still had to teach English classes for a week afterward.

What IS nice however is that the Chinese new year is a <understatement>pretty big deal</understatement>. This means that from the beginning of January until the middle of February has no school! Woot!

I was able to endure a week of nothing in my apartment before I realized that doing nothing is only slightly more fun than actually going to work. That called for a plan. A plan to do SOMETHING! When most people go to China, the go with the intent to travel. Sounded like a good plan to me, so that is what I decided to do. I talked to a couple other teachers here who wanted to travel as well and we decided to go to southern China near the border of Vietnam. From Zhengzhou (Henan province) to Nanning (Guangxi province) is just over 1000 miles (see map below). It is about the same distance as driving a car from Provo, UT to Kansas city MO. (Incidentally, I just found out from Wikipedia that Nanning is sisters cities to Provo. How cool is that?!)




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The Joys of Traveling in China

I am in China! I made it! Lifelong goal checked off. In the first few days here, I have experienced nearly every method of travel possible. One thing is for certain. Traveling in China is different than in America. VERY different.

(Warning; this is a LONG post. I suggest only reading it while eating ice cream)