Shawng-HI

So we went to Shanghai this past weekend and it was such a fun trip. It started out with the most hilarious thing (well, to me) this trip. It won't even sound funny when I talk about it probably. Madi and I set an alarm, but did not wake up at the horrendous time that we needed to. Kaylie comes flying in our room yelling that it was time to get up, but uh she waited until 4:30 am to do so, which was the time that we were supposed to be leaving to get taxis. I flew out of bed, screaming at Madi to get up, screaming at Kaylie. Kaylie screamed back, "Stop screaming at me, you bum hole!" I was not even all the way packed, so I started running around like a chicken with my head cut off. It's also important to know that I had taken night time that night because I have been sick. And it lasts for six hours. And it had only been four. So I was drowsy and laughing. I got ready so fast and packed so fast, I somehow made it. Or maybe we just didn't leave at the time we said we would. One of the two. When we got out to flag taxis at 5 am, we realized that it may be kind of difficult. There was no. one. No taxis were driving by. When they finally started to drive by, they would just pass us even though they could clearly see us since we were in the middle of the road. We realized that the taxis were not open yet, after trying to flag down several of these taxis. We split up and half of us ran to the other side of the road. Somehow, we got one taxi and then needed two more. About 20 minutes later, we got another, and then 10 minutes after that, got the third. By this time, we had walked so far, all the way down to the plaza. We were going to miss the bus. We had ten minutes and it was like a 30 minute drive by taxi. Courtney called the girls who were already at the bus station (I was in the last taxi with her) and she had them switch our tickets to a later time. Our tickets were for 6 am and we switched them to 6:50. But it is quite dumb, because guess what. We actually made it, by some odd miracle. Only after we had already paid to switch our tickets to a later time. DUMB. Off to a great start, I know.

I slept throughout the three hour bus ride to Shanghai and when we got there, we went to the Shanghai Wild Animal Zoo. It ended up being very rainy that day, so we were all in our ponchos and rain jackets and we were all pretty wet. It was still so fun! We even got to ride an elephant. It was such a neat experience. Some people held a baby lion, but I felt too bad after seeing how they were treating him. Those zoos make me sad, and I actually did start feeling guilty about the elephant, too. Kaylie, McKenna and I really wanted to ride a four-person bike, but they were all rented out. While we were walking, we actually ran across a stray one and thought maybe someone had left it. After watching it for five minutes and seeing that no one had come to claim it, we hopped on and started pedaling. Wondering why it would not budge, we looked down to realize that it had a chain on the wheel. Someone had just parked it. Dumb on us. There was a lot of paparazzi at the zoo. Jennie, Kaylie, Madi and I stood for five minutes just taking pictures with all these people. I seriously felt famous. That night, we went to the Shanghai Stake dance. It ended up being pretty lame, but there were American snacks, so it was good. And we did get some good dance moves in. We got some street noodles and fruit for dinner and stayed at a really nice hostel.

The next day we went to the district conference. Brother Toronto (in the quorum of 70) came to speak to us and it was really awesome. They even fed us a nice homemade meal and we about died because let's just admit it, we have been eating too much rice and mystery meat. After lunch, there was a single adult session with Brother Toronto and one of the wards sang the EFY medley and I loved it. It really took me back to EFY days. It was a really great day and I think we all needed some spiritual uplifting. After that, it was back to the bus we went and back to Ningbo. I sat with Courtney on the bus and we just talked about life and everything for the three hours. It made it go by so fast. I love her. What an amazing trip! We can't wait to go back to Shawng-HI.

To watch the video Jennie made of us at the zoo, click here.



Oh and by the way, Madi and I rearranged our room and we love it. It feels much bigger! This picture doesn't really do it justice.