Thanksgiving day we still had to teach at school! I mean obviously, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in China. I find it odd how my school went crazy about Halloween and barely recognized it was Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving I taught the kids a sweet milk experiment. You pour milk in a bowl and drop different colors of food coloring into the milk. Then you add a drop of dish soap and the food coloring goes crazy and mixes together. It was a pretty fun lesson but it was hard to control the kids because they were so excited. I was exhausted after school and was not a very good at all... so I took a nap after school and hung out with my cool roommates to cheer up. Later that night we got together for a Thanksgiving dinner. We invited our Chinese coordinators from school, our friends from our favorite smoothie store and our British friends that also teach near us. My head teacher, Karina made the everything! She made church potatoes, chowder, stuffing, mac and cheese, jello, pumpkin pie and few other random things. Sadly chicken/turkey is super expensive here and they have been diseased lately. After we ate dinner Brittany and Anna acted out the Thanksgiving story. Then Karina put together a slideshow of pictures and stories she had gotten from our parents. We had to guess people's baby pictures, family members, houses and stories. We were laughing a lot at people's pictures. It was a lot of fun :)

Wednesday we had parent day! It was slightly having our classroom filled with parents watching my every move. For my lesson I made paper plate turkeys which turned out pretty well. The kids were a little crazy because their parents were sitting right next to them though. At the end of the day all our kids ran up to me and Teacher Sarina and gave us little cards. Most of them said "Happy Thanksgiving" or "Thank you!". My two favorites were from Karmen and Aaron. Aaron's card said "This gift to my favorite teacher. I <3 teacher." Karmen's card said "I live you!" :) My kids are so awesome!

Sunday we headed back to Shenzhen for a Branch Conference! We left at 8:00 am and during the whole bus ride I had water dripping on me because there was a leak right above my head. Once we arrived at the church building the main sacrament room was full so we had to sit upstairs and watch it on the TV. We were a little upset we drove for two hours to watch church on a TV though. The main theme of conference was Obedience leads to happiness and blessings.  After conference we split up and us girls went to Relief Society. It has been so long since I've been to Relief Society... I'm going to have to get back into the the normal schedule of 3 hour church when I get back to the States. During class though we sang Away In A Manger for a practice hymn. It was during then that I realized that I really miss the Christmas spirit that China lacks. I'm going to go back to the USA on the 19th of December and will only get to experience a few days of it. I don't know how the Chinese people survive without the Christmas spirit. I feel like it's such a joyful time of the year for everyone to get rejuvenated for the following year. After Relief Society class was over we took the annual Branch Conference picture. Then we were feed very delicious Hawaiian haystacks and a pumpkin crisp with ice cream. After dinner we had a young single adult fireside with the branch president. The fireside was my favorite part. We were able to ask the president questions and he would answer them and then show us a Mormon video that correlated to our questions. He talked about qualities to look for in our future spouses, the increasing problem pornography is nowadays, and enduring to the end. Afterwards we headed back to Zhongshan!

We had to make the last day of being in Zhangjiajie count! We woke up at 6 am and headed back to the National Park we went to yesterday with the monkeys. However we were determined to get to the top of the Avatar so we went through a different entrance to get take a bus up the mountain. The bus ride up the mountain was definitely one of the most terrifying moments I've had while being in China. Driving in China is insanely dangerous because no one follows the traffic laws and there are no police to enforce the laws. I've gotten used to the bus rides in my home city where it constantly looks like were going to run people over. However, driving up the mountain in Zhangjiajie was a a lot different because of a few reasons... We were crammed inside a tour bus and I was nearest the front of the bus. If anything happened I would go flying through the front window! Also the rode we were driving on was a one way rode but they decided to make it a two way rode with huge tour buses passing each other. Also on every turn our bus driver thought it was a good idea to speed up instead of slow down. On every turn it seemed as though our bus was going to tip off the side of the mountain. Thankfully I made it up the mountain with no injuries. Once we got part way up the mountain we took two elevators up to the very top of the mountain. The last elevator we went on is known as the world's fastest elevator that can hold the most amount of people. When we finally got to the top it said we were on floor 362... It was incredibly beautiful when we got to the top! I was practically speechless, the only thing I could blurt out was AHHHHH OH MY GOSH AHHHH OH MY GOSH! Then we walked around for awhile taking pictures of the gorgeous mountains. It was way cool to see how similar the mountains in Avatar are to the actual mountains in Zhanjiajie. While hiking around we decided that we needed to watch the movie Avatar so we could all yell "I've been there before!" during the movie. Afterwards we headed out of the National Park and back to our hostel to catch our train.

The following day we headed to the other National Park in Zhangjiajie to see the Avatar mountains. When we first entered into the park we saw a few monkeys and we all started freaking out! Next thing we knew we were constantly surrounded by monkeys. The monkeys were everywhere! We took pictures with them and tried feeding. They were very entertaining but some of them mean so we had to be careful. After playing with the monkeys we began to make our way to the hike that was supposed to take us to the top of the Avatar mountains. However it took us hours just to make it to the bottom of the hike. It was SO beautiful just walking around in the park though. Many parts of China look like a jungle and I love it! As we began this "Hike to Heaven" it was torturous! It took us about an hour and half to get to the "top" and the whole time we were climbing stairs. Once we got to the "top" we were confused because we weren't actually on top of the Avatar mountains and it wasn't the cool outlook we were expecting. We figured we had taken the wrong pathway and headed back down. Unfortunately it was getting late in the day and we didn't have time to find the other hike. Although, we didn't make it to the top it was an enjoyable day anyway. Afterwards we ate dinner at McDonald's because it is one of the few places we found to eat at. Immediately as I got home I went to bed because I was worn out from the hard day of hiking.

Last Thursday we left for vacation to Zhangjiajie! After school Ali, Nikki, Holly, Ashlee and I immediately headed to the train station even though our train didn't leave until 8pm. Due to the bad luck we have had on vacations in the past we wanted to make sure we wouldn't miss our train! We got to the train station successfully 5 hours before we were actually supposed to leave, so we chilled in a smelly, dirty and packed KFC. We talked for hours asking each other random questions. A few hours later the rest of our group meet up with us and we made it on the train. Thankfully I got a sleeper for the train ride. Immediately as I laid down on the hard bed that was to short for me I fell asleep! It was a 14 hour train ride that was exceptionally better than the previous train rides I have been on just because I was in the horizontal position. 

We arrived in Zhangjiajie around 9 in the morning and made our way to McDonald's for breakfast. After breakfast we found our hostel and rested for a few minutes. Ali and I got the "honeymoon suite" but it was an older version of one because it had two beds. We definetly had the most comfortable beds. We actually had a mattress...everyone else slept on a plank of wood with a sheet.

After we had rested for a little bit we made our way to the National Park in Zhangjiajie that has the walk of faith. It was the craziest thing because while we were in the city we couldn't even see any mountains around us. China is so hazy and when its rainy its even more foggy! We took the world's longest cable car ride from the middle of the city to top of these hidden mountains. It was a 35 minute ride and it was gorgeous. Along the way we saw the world's windiest rode! Once we made it to the top we began our hike to the walk of faith. It was a very pretty hike, but it was hard to capture the beauty with pictures because it was still very foggy at the top of the mountains. As I got closer to the walk of faith and saw the ledge of glass I got a little nervous. However, while I was walking on the glass I was fine. It was a pretty short walk but it was a fun experience! After the walk of faith there were a lot of red flags that were tied to the trees. We were a little concerned as we noticed all the red flags and made the joke that each flag represented someone who died on the walk of faith. A little later we read that each of the flags have prayers have blessings written on them. We bought a red flag and signed our names on it with a message. I wrote my quote "You think you love your life? I love my life!" Ever since I said that in Yangshou people always bring it up and say it needs to be my life quote. Afterwards we hiked for awhile until we found the perfect place for our flag! I want to back in a few years to see if it is still there. We continued hiking around the national park until we found some temples and decided to explore them. It was interesting to see all the different idols in each temple and the many inscents they would burn. We headed back and went exploring for food. Oddly enough the city had very little options for food, so we eat at a restaurant near our hostel and got some fried rice. Typical us. Later that night Ali and I had some deep conversations and I was able to really bond with her in our honeymoon suite :)

Halloween day was insane! It was mismatch day so I wore my hot pink tights and my elephant shirt with two different pairs of socks and shoes. Because the Halloween party was later that day all the classes needed to practice their performances, so we did not have to teach out kids a lesson. During lesson time I played duck, duck, goose with my kids and did a puzzle. At the end of the lesson I gave each kid a piece of a chocolate cracker. When they ate the crackers they acted as if they had never tasted anything so good! They all yelled "TEACHA! YUMMY!" with their thumbs up. They are the cutest :) After school we had to get real busy and finish the haunted house. Thankfully, we finished well before the party started. Our Chinese coordinators claim that our haunted house was the best they have had so far. At the start of the haunted house we had a scary person open the door for the kids and then the kids walked under a curtain. Then they walked into the polka dot room, which I was in! The room had polka dots all over the room, while I was dressed in all black with polka dots on me. As the kids walked in I would sneak up on the kids and scare the kids with my scary face paint. One kid I scared so badly he just started at me for a whole minute with his eyes wide open not saying a word. Once his heart started beating again he yelled "TEACHA! HI TEACHA!" It was the hardest not break character with hm yelling that at me. After the polka dot room Nikki popped out at them from inside a coffin and then Alison would run at them down the hallway. Then they walked into a room with a bunch of balloons on the wall and on the floor. Holly would pop the balloons as the kids walked in and freak the kids out. Then the kids walked into a room with a long table with zombies crawling around it. As they walked by the table Carmen would lift up a bowl and Brittney's bloody head looked like it was laying on a platter. After the kids were grossed out by Brittney's head the next room was Anna as a mad scientist cutting open Karina with a meat slicer. We really pulled off a cool haunted house considering how little time we had. Later that night we got ready for the performance. I dressed up as a zombie construction worker and I looked super scary! Our teachers first performance was Party in the USA, then I danced to This Is Halloween with my class and my last performance was Time Warp with all the teachers. Everyone loved the performances! It was a super fun night!