Little girl in big world...

It seems as though I have been living in a completely different world ever since leaving Canada 3 short days ago (Monday Aug. 6^th @ 2:30am). All the flights went great – the connection in Hong Kong was smooth despite the fact that my arrival gate seemed to be on the complete opposite side of the airport from the departure gate. Oh, so much I could say about the trip itself – but in short it was just lots of sitting about 33000 feet above the ocean going about 950km/hr.

My final flight landed at about 9pm on August 7^th. It still is a complete miracle to me that all my luggage made it to this end of the world (amazing how it can get lost during one flight to Ontario…). It turned out my luggage had been searched through in San Francisco, but I can’t figure out what is missing yet (mom…any idea what was in the top front pocket of my largest suitcase?). Owh well, clearly it’s not a big deal or else I would have noticed by now I am sure. Funny how I bought those suitcases about a week ago…they already have grease and grossness all over them and a broken zipper. Owh well…at least they are being put to use.

It’s been a whirlwind of craziness since I got here. Two nights ago after I arrived we went to our hotel and decided we were hungry so we ended up going out to some street vendor to get some wonderfully greasy food. After talking and emailing a bit I did finally go to sleep only to realize that it gets lots lighter much earlier. I did get about 5 hours of much needed sleep. Anyway, at 10am we checked out of our hotel and went shopping at a Walmart (CRAZY huh!?)…here’s some pictures:

After our little Walmart/KFC adventure we ended up getting a taxi to the bus station and from there we took a bus to get to our final destination (aka ‘the best place in the world’ – according to some people). It’s amazing I am still alive – the last few hours of this trip seemed MUCH MUCH more dangerous than the first 24+ hours. There was a ton of honking and at least a few times where I just closed my eyes and hoped that I would be alive when I opened them again. Drivers are crazy and ravines are everywhere…bad combination. It was great to recognize lots of places along the way though! Leaving home and all that is familiar behind was difficult, but it’s exciting to see this whole other side of the world. Life is just so different here – I wish I could paint a clear picture in your head, but I can’t, so maybe you’ll just have to come visit. Some words that describe this place right now: hot, humid, honking, horking, stairs, people, noise, and beautiful mountains.

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(2 days later – I hope to keep this more updated regularly…that’s much easier than trying to do it all at once!)

Aaah, so yesterday morning I got to meet the other teachers and the principal at the school. It was interesting…SO different from Canada in so many ways! Very nice to meet some new people though! Some of the English teachers knew a bit of English so that was very helpful! Soon after coming back to the apartment (not my apartment – still waiting for that to be finished) Brianna, a girl who I met last year and who I had been keeping in contact with finally ‘found’ me. She said she’d been searching for me for a while that morning and it was a very happy little reunion! It is good to know some people around here. Brianna and I went out for mango slushies last night and just hung out like old friends all evening – it was very good!

This morning has been interesting. The principal of the school called to ask me to come to the school so that we could apply for a work visa. When I got to the school one of the English teachers and a driver were ready to take me to a city about 1.5 hours away from here. When we got to the city I found out that the men had not brought the right papers with them so haha…I just ended up going shopping for fishing rods with them. It was great! On our way back to my ‘home town’ we stopped for lunch...fish hotpot. I was allowed to pick out the live fish myself and they put the fish in a pot with water and boiled it. After boiling it I got a bowl of rice and they scooped me up one of the whole fish that had been boiling for a bit…eyes, tails, insides and all. Oooooh, will I ever get used to this? I ate most of it to be polite but hmm, just the thought…

Life is different here…but a good different so far. People are nice and it’s just so simple but beautiful.

I am glad to be here right now.