day 1 in china :)

helloooo :) i arrived safe and sound last night in beijing! my flight was super long and i kept waking up every hour with neck pains. it was really tiring but i was really happy to have arrived safely :) there was a super nice woman on the plane who sat next to me. she knew that i couldn't speak chinese so she helped me get my entry card and helped me with the airplane food :P i waited at the airport for about 4 hours and then met joy and mary. they were super duper kind and really welcoming :) we waited around and picked up melissa, morgan, and michael. we then drove to peking university at around 12pm. wow i don't think i've been THAT tired in a long time. i PASSED out in bed and i probably snored like a beast :D

today, i woke up at around 6am to meet my roomates yiyin and karen :) hehe you're probably surprised that sarah who sleeps like a bear was able to wake up at 6am. i'm surpised too.. but i think it was TOO EXCITED to keep sleeping :P we had breakfast and then had several seminars concerning tip, safety, mandarin language, and stereotypes. they were all really fun and interesting. i had my first experience with a squatty toilet this morning! lol it was kind of interesting.. if you were able to see how much i struggled with it, you'd probably DIE laughing. haha so its basically a hole in the floor so i had to balance while pooping. it was so hard but i did it! wahaha :P one of our facilitators taught us the GQ pose which is a special way of squatting so that you get the "FULL" experience :D we then ate lunch at the south restaurant on campus which was really yummy. it was my first real chinese meal here :) we toured the campus and had a meeting about food&manners and went to dinner in chang ping. we ate at this really fancy restaurant for $4 a person, which would probably cost around $20 per person in america. we ate so many new things that everyone had a really enjoyable experience. the main dishses that came out were sichuan cuisines so they had this special spiciness to them. the spiciness was really weird because it left sort of tingly feeling on my tongue. it wasn't my favorite, but it was definitely a good experience. we ended our meal with warm sesame rice balls. mmmm they were so hot, sticky, and yummy :D i'm gonna be SO FAT because everything hear is so yummy and cheap. MUHAHA :D after we ate dinner, we went to merry mart to buy groceries. it was reallyyy cool to go into the market. it was a really modernized 4 story market with everything from groceries to home appliances. everything is soooo cheap here that im afraid to go back to america -.- jeenjjah china is so amazing!! i love it here =) i'm meeting some really amazing people here that are from all over america. i can't wait to see what kind of relationships G-d will bless us with.

Every single moment of the day, I get more and more excited to meet my students that will be arriving on campus on july 4th. we have a long training but i'm really thankful for it because i feel that G-d is really going to use that time to really prepare our heart, mind, and soul. my first day here has been filled with so many exciting experiences as well as really blessing moments. i really can't wait to see how G-d is going to use every single day to speak to us. i'm seriously so super excited and i hope reading this is making you excited FOR ME :D well its 9:55pm here right now and i'm really tired so i'm gonna end it here. we're going to the GREAT WALL OF CHINA tomorrow!!!! everyone is so excited and i'm sooo looking foward to it. i'll update all about it when i get a chance. stay tuned! i have a special pr-yer topic. i've been having a really hard time breathing here in china. my nose is extra stuffed and dry at all times and so i've been breathing through my mouth. thats been kinda tough because its hard enough as it is to breathe here with all the humidity. so please keep my team members and i in your pr-yers. lots of LOVEEEE from china <3