Spring Trip 2014 - Gansu and Qinghai

Friday - Day 1

The first day was just traveling. Aside from a delayed flight, everything went off without a hitch.

Saturday - Day 2

We got up early to go do our service project, but before we left, we had to go get Niu Ro Mian (spicy beef noodles) for breakfast. My stomach didn't know what to do with mixture of spice and coffee.

We drove out of town to a farm area where we met some children with special needs. The plan was to do different stations with the children, but by the end the stations are sort of melded into one group. We did a skit, sang songs, made a paper chain, and ate lunch with the children.

When we got back to town, we met up with a Chinese high school soccer team, and the student enjoyed playing soccer with them. I think that this was probably one of the highlights of the trip for the students. After playing soccer, we went to a market for street food.

Sunday - Day 3

Lanzhou is known for having the yellow river, so we took some speed boats out on the river. Another thing that Lanzhou is known for is Niu Ro Mian, so for lunch we had Niu Ro Mian again. After lunch we headed to a park in Lanzhou that has cable cars up the mountain. Once on top of the mountain, we did a zipline and an alpine slide. Last year, the hike down the mountain was one of my favorite parts of the trip, but I think that the reason why it was so fun was because the pathway was under construction, so it was rather treacherous. It was bonding experience for those of us who went. However, this year the construction was complete, so the “hike” was just walking down a bunch of stairs, leading to several days of walking like an old lady and sore calves. Next year, I think we’ll take the cable car down the mountain.

Monday – Day 4

On Monday, we traveled to XiaHe, a small Tibetan town. Once we got to XiaHe, we were able to hike around the Labrong Monastery, which is the second largest Buddhist monastery in the world. Our tour guide explained to us different aspects of the monastery and Buddhism. Plus the landscape was beautiful. Seeing all the beautiful landscapes, I am further convinced that there is a creator of this universe (Romans 1:20). 

Honestly, I would love to go back to XiaHe on my own, and just to enjoy some time outside of the city and to be alone with God in nature.

Tuesday – Day 5

We went outside the “city” of XiaHe to the prairies where we enjoyed some Tibetan snacks and rode horses. I almost didn’t ride a horse because last year I found it rather terrifying. However, my horse this year was much more calm, and I am so glad that I did it.

Another highlight was using a countryside toilet. To be honest, it wasn’t too bad, and it certainly was not the worst toilet on the trip. The fabric door had a rip in it, so I felt a little exposed, but it did not smell like other toilets that we had to use at various gas stations on the trip. 

Later that evening, we met with some Chinese high school students and had an English corner, which turned into a Chinese corner instead. I think the students had fun playing games with each other.

Wednesday – Day 6

This day was the beginning of our misadventures. This was my first time leading this trip, and on Wednesday, we went to a new city that we had never been to before. This addition had been added to the trip because another teacher who had been there before suggested it.

We drove for several hours on bumpy roads, but I would say that the landscape was worth it. Pictures cannot do justice to the beauty that we saw. As we were driving, we were going higher and higher into the mountains, reaching almost 12,000 feet above sea level, which is twice as high as Denver. At one point, we stopped at the top of the mountain to see the view, stretch our legs, and use the restroom - just below this cliff was our toilet.

Our plan was to stop at a park on the way to our next destination. The ETA was 11 am, which would give us several hours in the park before we continued on our journey, but we did not arrive until around 4pm. We did get to see a small part of the park, but honestly by that time, most people were just tired and hungry.

When we got the hostel, we enjoyed pizza and hanging out in the common room. I am so proud of our students they had such good attitudes about the trip, which was important because we needed these positive attitudes for the next day.

Thursday – Day 7

The plan was to go to Qinghai lake, the largest lake in China, eat lunch, play Frisbee by the lake, and be back in time for dinner at a street market. We drove to the lake, and we stopped for Frisbee and lunch by the lake, but we did this in the parking lot instead of going into the lake area because the plan was to continue to another part of the lake to get out and look around. What started as a 7-hour trip turned into a 12-hour trip. We ended driving around the entire lake, which was a little over 400 miles. We did get out of the vans and have the opportunity to bike beside the lake, but once again we got there so late that everyone was just tired and hungry and ready to go “home.”

However, this bus ride was a blast. We played Mafia, solved the world’s problems, discussed theology and religion, sang songs, and generally had positive attitudes.

Since this was the last night, the plan was to let the students stay up late, but by the time we got back, most of the students were so exhausted that they just went to bed.

Friday – Day 8

We slept in, which was beautiful. Then we met for devos where we talked about looking ahead to being seniors.

After the students packed up, we got on the busses and head to lunch. Unfortunately, we were trying to go to lunch near a mosque, and Muslims have their worship service on Fridays around lunchtime. All the cars stopped in the middle of the road so that people could go to the Muslim service.

So we got out of the vans and split into groups to get lunch. During lunch, we talked about our takeaways from the trip; everyone said patience, which was good because it took us about a half an hour to find our vans after lunch. On top of that, the school children were heading back to school, and they mobbed us foreigners. It was rather overwhelming. At this time, the Muslim service was also getting out and there was just this sea of white hats flowing from the mosque. It was hard to believe that all those men could fit into one building. 

After wadding through the sea of humanity, we got on the vans, headed to the airport, got on the plane, and made it safely to Beijing.

Thanks to the brilliance of one of our leaders, we ordered Avocado tree (the Chinese version of Chipotle), and we had it delivered to the airport so that we could get on the road and get home asap. Unfortunately, we needed to learn another lesson in patience. The bus to take us home was not supposed to drive in Beijing from 5-8 pm, so we had to wait in the parking lot of the airport until 8 pm before we could go home.

The bus ride was once again filled with Mafia and good conversations, and we made it home around 11 pm.

Takeaways

If I am going to ask my students to talk about takeaways from the trip, then I should also reflect on them as well.

1)   I built good relationships with both the students and with the other leaders on the trip, and I look forward to continuing to build them.

2)   Patience.

3)   I need to be flexible in the best-laid plans of mice and men. I worked hard to make sure this trip was well organized, and things still didn’t always go the way I planned. At that point, the options are to get frustrated or to make the most of the time given. I think that as a whole, we made the most of our time.

4)   I think even before this trip that the Father has been teaching me about surrender. All other belief systems are about man searching for god, but Christianity is about God pursuing man. My faith is not about what I can do to earn his favor; it is about being “alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5).

The Great Bike Saga (Part III)

If you are interested in reading about parts I and II of the great bike saga, you may read them here and here.

Today, the plan was simple: ride my bike to E-mart to see Captain American 2, and then ride it to dinner for a friend’s birthday. While I did get to do both of these things, there was quite a bit of trouble along the way.

On the way to E-mart, I was switching gears and my pedals locked up. I pulled my bike onto the sidewalk to find that my chain had come off and had gotten caught. After several minutes of pulling on the chain, getting my fingers caught on the chain, pushing on the pedals, almost having my bike fall over, I got the chain back in place and was on my way.

After going to the bathroom to wash my very dirty hands, I arrived at the movie theater as the movie was supposed to be starting. Thankfully my friend had bought my ticket, and we sat in our seats just as they were turning off the lights. The movie was excellent, and I am looking forward to future Marvel movies.

When the movie was over, my friend had a headache, so I tried to give her some ibuprofen, but the little packet that I had would not open. We tried to go to the stationary store to use a pair of scissors, but it was closed. Therefore, we went into main E-mart grocery store so we could use a pair of their scissors in order to open the packet.

With the medicine working its magic, we headed to the restaurant for dinner. Now, as we were leaving E-mart, I know that I put my bike chain in my basket on top of my purse. I purposefully put it there because I don’t want my purse to get stolen. In order to steal my purse someone would have to open my basket, pick up my chain, which is fairly heavy, and take my purse without me noticing. I don’t know that my bike chain is all that heavy, but it makes me feel better when it is on top of my purse. Well, either this plan worked really well or something else happened because when we got to the restaurant, my bike chain was gone. I don’t remember anyone being close enough to us to steal it, and I don’t know how it could have fallen out (I think I would have heard something), but it was nowhere to be found.  To top it off my bike tire was completely flat. There was a place not too far from the restaurant where I could take my bike, but some of my friends were already there, so I figured I could take my bike to a bike repairman after dinner.

I knew that I should have gone before dinner, but I didn’t. Dinner took longer than I had planned, so by the time dinner was done, the bike repairman had packed up for the night. So my plan was to ride my bike, very slowly, home and hope to find a bike repairman along the way. I figured that I would probably need a new tire, but if I could at least get air in it, I could get it home. I stopped at a gas station (in the US, they usually have air), but no luck. Then I stopped at a car tire place, but they did not have the right part for a bike. As I continued to ride, I questioned whether my bike would make it home. Then I remember that a family from my school lived near where I was. I don’t know them well, but I called someone for their number. Then I called them to ask if they either had a bike pump or would let me stash my bike at their place, so I could take a taxi home. We tried the first option, but then I realized that my tire had come out of it’s tube, and the newly inflated tube looked like it would burst, so I opted for the second option. I locked up my bike in the stairwell of their apartment with the intention of coming back to get it another day.

The next part should have been easy. I was going to take a taxi home. I walked to the corner and wait and waited for a taxi. As I was waiting, the wind picked up. Dust was blowing in my eyes, and there were no taxis to be found. The dust was bothering my eyes, so I put on my sunglasses to try to protect them while I waited. They didn’t really help, and it was just harder to see since sunglasses are not meant to be worn at 8 o’clock at night. After a while, I decided to walk back to the apartment complex and ask the guard to call a taxi for me. I’ve never had a guard do this for me before, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

When I asked the guard, he told me he couldn’t call a taxi and that I should walk. It is not that far of a walk home, but I’m not sure that it would be the safest walk home. Instead I walked to another intersection, and I waited some more.  The wind was still blowing pretty heavily, raindrops were beginning to fall, lighting was striking, and everyone and their brother wanted a taxi. Finally, by a miracle of heaven, after a total of over 40 minutes of waiting, I got a taxi.

In all of this, I can see the Father’s hand. What if I had tried to ride my bike home in the wind and the rain? With or without a flat tire, it would have been difficult. Also, He put people in my life who were able to help me. I’m not sure how I will get my bike home, but that is a problem for another day.