Monks Have Cell Phones

After I got back to Zhongshan, we had 3 full days of teaching and then off we went on Vacation number 2! Then off the week long vacation I went. Stop number one, Leshan! After taking all sorts of different ways of transportation, we eventually made it to Leshan. I loved every minute spent in Leshan. One of the adventures was taking taxis, as always in China because hardly anyone knows a good amount of English. Our taxi driver was no exception. One thing I should mention about this taxi is that in taxis they generally have some sort of identification and certification on the dashboard that states they are a legal taxi driver with their picture. Well about 5 minutes into our drive, I look at the certification picture and then at our driver and it definitely wasn't the same guy. I pointed at the picture then at him and he just started laughing and laughing and laughing, which caused me and the two other girls (Shelbie and Autumn) to laugh nervously... I wasn't too worried because he was pretty excited that he was driving us, until he made a random phone call. I got slightly nervous that maybe he was taking us to some random place to die or something dramatic and crazy like that, but that wasn't the case. A few minutes later, another taxi driver, who I guess was his friend, pulled up next to our taxi and were hootin and hollerin at us and kept saying "BEAUTIFUL *insert random Chinese* club, good *insert more random Chinese*" I wasn't really sure what exactly they wanted, but I didn't want to say yes or encourage them too much because I was just worrying about getting to our hotel. Turns out, we think the taxi driver just wanted to show us off to his friends.So, no worries, we thankfully made it to our hotel safe and sound.  And had an amazing couple of days in Leshan. 

The highlight of Leshan was The GIANT Buddha. The Leshan Giant Buddha is the largest Buddha in THE WORLD, towering 71m, with his 14.7m head and 24m shoulders. This thing was amazing and I cannot get over how big it is. I loved it.

After seeing the Giant Buddha, we started to walk over towards The Oriental Buddha Theme Park. While walking around, I got pretty excited because I saw some monks, of course I took some "look! hurry get them in the background" pictures, but then they agreed to take a picture with me. After I took some pictures with them, they pulled out their cell phones and took some pictures of us! I didn't know monks have cell phones! That was really funny to me. 

Also, at one point we saw a guy holding a monkey that was in a costume. It was so cute and I walked over to get a picture of the guy holding the monkey and the monkey hopped right onto me! I GOT TO HOLD A REAL ALIVE CUTE MONKEY! The monkey had his tongue stuck out at me in most of the pictures but it was so cute and so much fun to get to hold it. 

There was also this adorable little guy holding onto some bamboo. 

The Oriental Theme Park is basically just a giant park full of a lot of different Buddha's. The park houses about 3000 Buddha statues, big and small. It was so neat to walk around that area and to see all the many different Buddhas. 

Another fun yet kinda scary about Leshan was that since it surprisingly isn't a huge tourist spot for westerners, a lot of restaurants didn't have a menu with English. Usually we can get by because a lot of places in China at least have pictures of the food and we can just point at something that looks good. Well, unfortunately, beside places right next to the Giant Buddha. There were not any pictures and it just had Chinese character. Autumn just picked something random off the menu, I, however, did a lot of charades and even drew a picture to let the girl know that I wanted Potatoes and Rice (thankfully I knew how to say rice in Chinese already, and have since learned how to say potato so I wont have to go struggle so much to get some good food).

Sometimes it can be pretty tough to communicate with Chinese people who don't know any English, but thankfully, they are all super nice and try their hardest to understand what I want or what I need. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to have to try and deal with me! I am after all in their country, and I can hardly speak their language. I'm grateful for all the nice and caring Chinese people who help me out and some who even go out of their way to try and help. I know that in the US a lot of people get upset when people from different countries can't communicate, and I can even say, shamefully, that in the past I have uttered the words and thought the thoughts of, "well, they are in our country, they should know how to speak English". I now am really ashamed that those thoughts ever crossed my mind and all I can say is once again, I am so grateful for the caring and nice Chinese people who help me. I know for a fact that in the future when ever the opportunity presents itself, however tough it may be, I want to help people who can't speak English with whatever they may need. And, I hope that others will do the same. One of the main things that I have learned from all my travels is that people, no matter where they are from, appreciate nice people and wouldn't the world be a better place if we all were just a little nicer and tried to help each other out just a little bit more. Food for thought. Anyways, Leshan was an amazing place to start our vacation.

Here is a picture of me and my sista-friend in front of one of the Buddhist Temples where they are burning incense. I'm so grateful Autumn is here experiencing China with me. I am so glad that we ended up being sisters and that we are such good friends. She has been such a huge help in keeping me sane with all my crazy head teaching duties. I have had so much fun while here, and she is definitely a huge part of that. She is beautiful and smart and one of the most amazing people I know. Sorry gentlemen, she is about to serve an 18 month LDS mission in Xalapa, Mexico. Once we get back from China of course. ;)