Mark: My Words

To Those who Serve

2011-09-15T00:04:00.000-06:00

I think it could be considered an understatement that...I travel a lot for work. I LOVE traveling, but I have to say that one of the best trips I have had so far happened last weekend. A few months ago (right after graduating from high school,) my nephew enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He spent about 13 weeks in basic training and this weekend was his graduation.

I was in Vegas for work and took the extra hop, skip and a jump down to LA where I rented a car and drove down to San Diego, where the Marine Corps basic training happens. I got to stay on base overnight, and watch a very cool morning colors ceremony all in preparation for graduation.

One of my favorite parts of the day was when the Marine Band played. They are so good! I can't believe how perfectly together they are--in EVERYTHING. You can tell that they practice A LOT together.

But by far, the best part of the weekend was the actual graduation ceremony. For those not as familiar with the Marines, it is largely led by tradition and ceremony--pomp and circumstance for the lack of a better term. All 500 or so recruits march in step by step.

They are so in line its basically impossible to see who is standing behind the person in the front of the line. When they march, its as if you only hear one clop of the shoe, rather than the 500 that there are in reality. When they respond to their drill instructor, its in complete unison. The closest thing I can compare it to is like the rushing wind, but thats all I can come up with!

Overall, it was an amazing experience and I'm so glad that I went. I only got to talk to my nephew for a couple of minutes, but he looks so good and I couldn't be more proud of him and the choices that he's making.

When someone close to you decides to enter the military, perspective definitely changes. I have nothing but the highest respect for the men and women who willingly serve their country.

Regardless of their reasons, they willingly put their life on the line so that I can be comfortable in my day-to-day life. Its amazing how quickly I forget the sacrifices that these brave men and women make so that I can enjoy the freedoms that I have.

Shortly before my nephew went to Boot Camp, he sang this song at a school event. Listen, and really think about the words. At least for me, I know they're true.

"There's only two people who've ever died for me.

Laid down their lives just so I could be free.

They both went through hell, bared crosses and shells.

And both got back up again after they fell.

They never pick a fight but they're there to pick up the pieces

God only knows where we'd be without soldiers and Jesus.

...

To Me they're both heroes for the path that they chose.

One fights for my life, one fights for my soul.

We will never forget.

2011-09-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Today is September 11. There are so many other people that can write so much more profoundly than I--I can only share my own thoughts the best I can. It amazes me that 10 years have already gone by. I can still remember exactly where I was on that day, in 2001 when I first heard about the attack on the World Trade Center, and then later on the Pentagon.

I watched the towers fall on live television. Like many, I waited for what seemed like an eternity for news from family who worked close to the towers. It is clearly a day that changed the hearts of Americans forever.

In the face of those terrible attacks, we stood with broken hearts because of the tragic loss of life that day. Many of those who lost a mother or father, spouse, or family member continue to mourn for their loved ones who will never come home, but are forever engrained in memory.

So often we hear the phrase, "We Will Never Forget"and "We Remember." I love that one of the major news outlets is encouraging us to remember by serving someone else. It is a fitting memory to those who lost their lives--especially those who gave their lives willingly so that those trapped in the towers, and the pentagon could be saved.

And we cannot forget the brave souls on Flight 93 who "served" who knows how many people by giving their lives so that another attack would be stopped.

I find myself thinking more and more about those who helped clean everything up.

They searched for survivors. They picked up the pieces so that we could start fresh and build something in those areas again. Just like they "picked up the pieces" so that there could be a new beginning, I can also "pick up the pieces" in my own life. I know I have so many short comings. But I can start over and have a new beginning--and the great thing is that the best part is yet to come.

In Memory of the more the 3,000 people that were lost. We Remember

Lots to catch up on

2011-09-10T00:20:00.001-06:00

Well y'all, I basically stink. Seriously. Its been a crazy day, and I've worked pretty hard so I probably really do stink. But what I was referring to was my lack of blogging. Thats about to change though. Stick close--I've got some awesome stuff coming in the next couple of days, and a recap of all the craziness thats happened over the last few months. Its gonna be good.

Follow me. Or don't. But if you do, it will be worth it.

MWill

A rather random update

2011-02-05T14:55:00.001-07:00

Forgive me for my selfish nature in this post, but Mark: My Words...there will be something much more interesting next time.

February is such an interesting month. First, the month gives up early at only 28 days. Second, its one of the only "dates" that is confusing as to its correct pronunciation. Feb-ru-ary. Or is it Feb-u-ary? Its kind of like Wed-nes-day. Or is it Wens-day? Who really knows? In any case, that isn't the point.

As I start this post, I regret to inform you that I unfortunately had to reset the countdown calculator to graduation. While I will be completely done with classes (I hope) as of April 2011, I won't officially graduate until June 2011, and then I won't walk and see my name on the program (yes..it IS that important) until August 2011. Why you ask? Why not? In all reality, I missed the April graduation deadline because my documentary isn't quite done yet. As odd as it seems, I am actually really happy that I get to push back graduation for a few more weeks/months. Its definitely making this semester just slightly (very slightly) less stressful, which I welcome with open arms after last semester's crazy awesomness.

Which brings me to my latest point, what should I do after graduation?

Just to give you a bit of my college qualifications, I'm graduating with university honors with a bachelor's in Communications with an emphasis in Broadcast Journalism (*gasp for breath*), and with a double minor in business management and political science.

The natural track would be for me to go somewhere in the US and be a weatherman while I take online classes to officially become a meteorologist. Cool? Yes. I think so. The pay stinks, and I'd probably be in the middle of nowhere, but it would be fun.

Second, I could move to Washington, D.C. and get a job on or around Capitol Hill. I have some contacts that have expressed interest in having me come their way, so that is an option as well.

I love business, public speaking, and real estate, and could easily see myself getting into some aspect of one of those businesses after graduation.

Finally, I have siblings in Washington, Oregon, Indiana, and Virginia who have all suggested I come to live out their way. What would I do? Who knows. But it would be a change of scene, which could be great.

Over the last few months I've asked a few people what they see as some of my strengths, and what types of "jobs" they could see me in.

Most all of them suggested some sort of spokesman, business consultant, motivational or public speaker, or something in sales.

So now, what do you think? What should I be when I grow up? :-) Ready, set, vote

As a nice end note, isn't this the most fun and creative commercial you've seen in a while?

January 27th, 2011 - BYU ElevenNEWS

2011-01-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

What a great day! I get to meet Jimmer Fredette, be on TV, and say "CRAP" on air. Could life be any better?!

Can somebody find me...somebody to love?

2011-01-21T20:48:00.001-07:00

I have to admit...this is definitely one of the more creative videos I've seen as of late. Kudos BYU-I. I don't say that very often (haha), but in this case, it is definitely deserved.

Around the world in 365 days

2011-01-01T20:36:00.016-07:00

2010 was one of the most amazing years for me, for a number of different reasons. I'll do an official "recap of 2010" post a little later.

A few weeks ago, I decided to figure out how far I actually had traveled over the past year. I know its been a lot but I really had no idea how far I had gone, though I did know that my study abroad during the summer was about 17,000 miles in itself. After doing the math, I figured out that in one year, I traveled at LEAST 46,200 miles. Now, that doesn't account for day-to-day traveling, or anything like that, BUT it does include trips to, through, or from

Las Vegas, NV
San Jose, CA
San Diego, CA
Mesa/Phoenix, AZ
Los Angeles, CA
Indianapolis, IN
Washington, DC
Boston, MA
New York City, NY
Paris, France
Milan, Italy
Lausanne, Switzerland
Beijing, China
Dubai, UAE
Seoul, Korea
Tokyo, Japan
Iasi, Romania
London, England

So the question is...where will I go this year to make it even better? Antarctica? Africa? Nah...

I think I'll settle for a Caribbean cruise in November. Who wants to go? :-)

People are amazing

2010-10-21T10:39:00.000-06:00

Whether or not anyone reads my blog is irrelevant to me. I like to think I have a massive following (of at least 5 or so)...

Anyway, most people I associate with regularly know that I'm working on a documentary right now for my final senior project. The documentary (with the working title "I am not my body") is going to focus on the life of a remarkable young man named Marius Dasianu. (Watch a short video about his story at mariusmovie.blogspot.com ... Don't judge me for my shameless plugs for donations).

A few years ago, he was in a fire at his home in Romania. The fire burned more than 75% of his body. FAST FORWARD nearly 3 years, and he is in the US receiving high quality medical care for his injuries.

I had the honor of meeting this amazing young man yesterday...and I'll have the opportunity to spend a fair amount of time with him in the next few weeks/months.

All I can say is, WOW. I'll write another post on that a bit later.

Along with that, I want to talk briefly about some of the people that I've (we've) met on this trip already.

And I'm continually amazed by how genuine and kind people are all throughout the world. It blows me away every time I think about how a family will welcome in random people with open arms and be so hospitable to them. I can't be thankful enough for the kindness and hospitality that families in Las Vegas, and now San Diego have extended to me and my group so freely.

People can overcome.

People are amazing.

Playing to Win or playing not to lose

2010-10-18T23:39:00.000-06:00

I don't have a lot of time tonight, but there is something that I wanted to talk about really quickly. Like I mentioned in my last post (from forever ago), I'm working on a documentary for my final project. For more information about it (basically a 2 minute video about the topic), go to this link. I can't tell you how many amazing things have all happened as me and my team have been working on this project. We've made such amazing...and rather random connections as a result of the project, and some amazing things have all fallen into place as we've gone through the process of planning and prepping.

The main thought for tonight is,

"Are you playing to win, or are you playing not to lose?"

I realize that so often in life, I play not to lose. I'd rather do what is necessary just to get by, rather than really work to actually WIN. Winning could mean a lot of different things. But mostly, it means that you are proactive and working to make things happen rather than sitting by and letting things happen to you.

Working on this documentary has been a real test for me. Making calls (which are not my favorite), asking people for help, and trying to help other people at the same time.

I can only hope that everything will work out. Step by step, miracles happen. The key with this is those steps. Often people pray asking for a miracle, then just wait for everything happen. Sometimes God lets our own two hands and our two feet be the avenue that actually brings the miracle to pass.

So, I'm deciding to win. I play to win. I make things happen and move things forward.

As a side note...I'm going to Romania. And I'm going to help make some big things happen because of my documentary. It is only the beginning...and I wouldn't be where I am right now were it not for amazing people to help and encourage along the way.

Life is grand. Isn't it? :-)

Kind of exciting...

2010-09-16T18:41:00.002-06:00

So, for my senior capstone project, I'm going to be putting together a 30 minute documentary. Things are starting to fall in line with it, and I think its going to be pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself.

I'll update with some updates (you like that, don'tcha?) when I get more firm info.

So exciting!

Another National Anthem

2010-08-31T18:39:00.000-06:00

So today I got to sing the National Anthem at the SLC Bees (a minor league baseball team). It was the 2nd day of school, (i.e., busy) and I left thinking I had more than enough time...but I got stuck in traffic on the way up there (thank you so much I-15) and THEN took the wrong exit. Haha. Oops.

Basically, I got there about 10 minutes before the game was supposed to start. I parked at a gas station and begged the manager not to tow me, ran to the stadium, met up with Uncle Dwayne, Aunt Joanne, and Melani (thanks for coming guys!) I got them their tickets, got taken to the field, got a drink of water and had a few minutes to simmer before going out to sing!

In any case, I had a blast and was surprised because I didn't even feel nervous. (Adrenaline? Probably).

Let me know what you think!

The day within a day (living it twice baby!)

2010-07-23T18:23:00.000-06:00

Well, it’s the last day of our trip. We were able to sleep in a little bit (especially because a lot of us stayed up so late doing Kareoke, which I might add was TOTALLY WORTH IT.) Anyways, we were able to have a bit of a slow morning…having breakfast, packing and then getting everything ready to catch the express train to the airport. It is kind of weird knowing that this was the last time that we would be in Tokyo as a whole group. The train ride was pretty short…only an hour or so, and then we started the process of getting checked in and everything. It took a while, but was much better than some of the places that we have already been. We had quite a bit of time to kill, and I was starving, so after we found our gate, I started looking for some food to eat. I could stick with sodas or candy bars, or dried squid, octopus, or kimchi. No thanks. I was done with adventure for a bit, or so it felt. I did find this really nice place though that served some ramen. 100 times better than that top ramen crap they serve in the states. I really liked it (and even ate most of it with chop sticks. I’m actually getting quite good). We made it back to the gate…I celebrated by eating a semi-melted snickers bar (surprisingly, they taste the same in Japan as they do in America.) And got on the plane. Lucky for me (*sarcasm) I got put in the middle seat…well there was 5 on a row and I was 2nd from the end. But…for one of the first times of the trip, I was next to people I know so that was kind of fun. During our 11 hour flight, I watched 5 or so movies, played a trivia game against other people in my group (and won), and basically didn’t sleep at all. But that was ok. It was still fun.
Customs in SLC wasn’t too bad, it was just slow because they don’t have a lot of international planes come in normally I think. In any case, it was weird to be back home. I hadn’t been able to coordinate a ride before I left Japan, so thankfully one of the girls from the trip let me get a ride with her ride. They were so kind to let me tag a long.

Overall, it was an amazing trip and I would love to do it again. I think about all the things that I was able to participate in—in only 27 days and I really am surprised. The experience was totally worth it…I come away with so many more friends and such a bigger understanding of how the world really works. Everyone I’ve talked to about study abroads say that it was some of their favorite experiences in the world. And now I finally know what they mean.

Best Day EvR

2010-07-22T18:22:00.001-06:00

Today was the Best day ever! We got to go to Tokyo DisneySea, which is slightly different than Disneyland simply because rather than a theme park built around different “lands”, the park is built around different waterfronts. For example, there is the Mediterranean waterfront (like Venice, Italy). The American Waterfront (New York). The Arabian Waterfront (Aladdin’s palace). The Mermaid Lagoon (the underwater palace from the little mermaid…etc.) Needless to say…it was AMAZING. The detail was so fine, the park was so fun, and the experience was fantastic! To get there, we had to take two trains, which was an experience in itself. Rush hour on the train system in Tokyo is legendary. There are more than a million people that ride the subway each day…and you can see why. People cram them selves into the car, and people walk by and help push them in. When the doors are supposed to close, it doesn’t look like it would even be possible for them to close…yet they squeeze in really well and make it happen. Its insane. You are totally pushed up against everyone else…and all just sweating cause its hot outside! So..even though we were all clean when we left the hotel, we were all wet and sweaty when we got to Disneyland an hour later. It was crazy. Its really impossible to describe…
We started at the Indiana Jones ride. We only had to wait in line for a half hour or so, and we got on. Pretty good huh! And the best part…the ride broke down half way through our ride! So, we got to wait until some fun Japanese girls came and got us and then walked us through the rest of the ride. We got free passes to cut in line as a comp. That was pretty cool. We just hoped that the ride would reopen later in the day.
Next we went to this show that really focused on Japanese culture. It was amazing! They had some really cool acrobatics and it really focused on the Japanese nature spirits. It was kind of inspirational, actually and really fun to watch. Once again, hard to explain. But SO COOL!
They have some weird things here. Curry or Black pepper popcorn…basically every popcorn stand we walk by is a different flavor. Random.
We got lunch as a group and then 5 of us (Joseph, Chad, me, Kristen, and Laura) walked over to the Cirque de Soleil theater to go see the 1 pm show. Man, am I ever glad that we did. It was some of the most mindblowing things I’ve ever seen in my life. If only I could stretch like that. Wow. I would love to go back and see it again. I. Love. Cirque. Shows. That is all.
Back to the park. We wanted to meet back up with everyone, but we couldn’t find them. So, we went and had fun anyway. Tower of Terror (Kristen almost wet her pants and had to hold on for dear life…no…just kidding. That water was from Chip n’ Dales’ spray thing), and a bunch of other fun rides. Such a good day. We watched a few of their shows, which were really well done as well.
Finally, we decided to go on Indy again. 3 times in a row. Gotta love short lines! And TOT one last time. We WERE the last people on the ride. YES.
I love you duffy. (And Shelly Mae of course).
Met up with the group and road home. Man, I was tired. But…after a few minutes of rejuvenation at home, I walked over to Kareoke at the Kareoke lounge! Nothing like unlimited drinks and awesome singing fun in Japan! And squatters for the toilet when all that coke and pepsi finally make it through the system. But I will just leave that mental image for you.
It seriously was so much fun. I love Kareoke…until 3:30 am. Then its just time to go to bed.

A day in a paragraph...or so

2010-07-21T18:22:00.000-06:00

Simply for simplicity (you like my redundancy?) I will briefly tell you about today in one paragraph. How long that paragraph will be, is TBD. Don’t judge.
We went to two different businesses today. First, Wal-mart (Seiyu). It was really interesting to hear about how business is different for them in Japan compared to the US. Plus, they gave us “I love KY” pens. I laughed. They aren’t talking about Kentucky or the jelly. It’s a shortened meaning for “I love every day low prices” Go figure.
They fed us some lunch, we went shopping in their store (I loaded up on werther’s original, a pepsi, and authentic tim tams. I’m so adventurous.) and we had class in a random park. Only half of the group got eaten alive by killer ants the size of my mother’s house. Okay, they weren’t that big. But they were that annoying.
Second was Disney (everything for Japan but the theme parks in Japan). They gave us water and I was happy. (It was hot outside!). Once again, I love Disney and it was a great visit. Man. Disney rocks.
A few of us went to Uniqlo, which is a clothing store. I had high hopes of being able to buy some clean clothes, but once again my hopes were dashed. I did learn something about myself though. I am MUCH too big to be Japanese. My waist was fine, but my butt was way too big. Go figure. Stupid butt.
Then, to finish up the day, we had a scavenger hunt. We ran. And lost. But we all still got ice cream out of it! And when one gets ice cream, it is never a bad day.

Crap…I wrote 6 paragraphs instead of 1.

A slippery day with Micky

2010-07-20T18:18:00.000-06:00

We met with Aflac insurance today and they gave us these really cool little Japanese aflac toys. Is it bad that sometimes I really like to squeeze the toy just so I can hear some random Japanese people singing a song…in Japanese? I love the change of culture. Its so entertaining to me. The Japanese people really are awesome.
I also got to try some really awesome “Butter chicken curry and rice.” I’m starting to warm up to curry a lot more as I get older. In fact, dare I say I really like it. Don’t tell anyone though. I don’t know why. It may hurt my….[insert random noun here].
We got to go to the temple after that. So cool. I ended up going with the girls to help out with Baptisms, but I ended up getting baptized instead. They ended up having too many people and so I didn’t do anything. But its all good. I was a little bummed, but how can you be bummed when you’re in the temple!? Their font was stainless steel, which can only only be spelled one way. SLIPPERY. But it was fun and Chad did a great job. Man, I am so lucky. I love life. And, with a nice ending to a day like…McDonalds…could life get any better? ;-)

I want to be a Ninja...on a bullet train.

2010-07-19T18:18:00.000-06:00

Off to Kyoto! We had to get up early(ish) to make it to the train station in time for our trip to Kyoto on the bullet train. We scarfed down a wonderful breakfast (fruit on the rind, waffles with maple butter, which by the way, is AMAZING, and met around 9 in order to begin our trek. Wholey crud, it was hot outside. It just kind of engulfs you and is sticky. It just makes the adventure more…adventure-like. We had to take a train to get to the bullet train. We were all good, until we got to the next station, especially as we only had about 5 minutes to make it from the subway to the bullet train. Three people (one being me) got stuck behind some HUGE crowds and a few really old/slow people (I’m not saying old people are slow…I’m saying that these particular people were haha) and we lost the group. No bueno. We were running up and down different sets of stairs trying to find the group with no success. We found out a general area we were supposed to go really quick, ran back downstairs, and luckily saw someone who was looking for us. We met up, ran up the stairs, and jumped on the train. Halleigh-freaking-lu-ya! We were so glad it all came together even if we were hot and sweaty.
The first part of the trip we were supposed to discuss the book that we have been reading as a group. It was a really fun discussion, as we were able to see different things that impressed each other. Its called Made to Stick, and it actually is really good, especially if you are trying to get an idea across to people (whether as a teacher, or as a business person…it applies in almost all situations).
The view along the track was phenomenal. We saw a lot of the Pacific Ocean (its weird to say that, as my hometown is right up against the Pacific Ocean too), and a ton of green, mountains, and villages.
I dozed a fair amount, and we eventually made it to Kyoto. After getting a few things (Money being the big one), we were on our way. Interestingly enough, we all decided to stick together as a group, which actually made things a lot easier. We grabbed a bite to eat and I learned quickly how expensive everything in Japan is, especially when compared to China (at least McDonalds isn’t as expensive as Switzerland. I had a set of small 1.5 inch square sandwiches that had som really interesting things on them. One was a normal ham and mayo sandwich, but the next was a weird type of egg sandwich and another one was a weird tomato thing…but they really were pretty good. I think it had potato in it to. Interesting. Haha. Then we met up as a group and went on the train to a large shrine. I can’t remember the name of the shrine, but it was great. I am amazed at how connected the Japanese people seem to be with the earth. It is just part of their culture. It love it. We walked around there for a while and saw some amazing things while we were threer. We had to wash our face and hands before we entered the shrine area, and all the orange arches are supposed to bring good luck. After a while, we went back to the train and caught a bus up to an ancient temple. We had to hike a bit of a hill in order tog et up to it. Talk about sweating. Here more than anywhere else, I feel like I”ve entirely lived in my swet. Its making me want real aa/c more than ever. We got to the temple and I totally thought of golfland in California. It has one of those asian temples thing like that. Anyway we walked around and got the lay of the land. A few of the things that we wanted to do were already closed, which is super lame. One thing we did go up to was these two rocks. The myth I that if someone is able to walk from one rock to the other with their eyes closed, that they will be able to find their true love without any help. If they need assistance from someone else, it means that they will be able to find their true love ,but only with help. Kind of a fun thing. It technically was already closed, but we snuck up there into the earea and got kicked out by security before I got the chance to do it. I hope that’s not saying something about my desiny haha.
Then we walked around the grounds some more, took a few more awesome pictures especially because you could see the entire city of Kyoto fro a distance. It really was pretty cool. Then we walked down to this spring thing that has three separate funnels that he water flows out of. One is supposed to represent health, one represents longevity, and one represents wisdom. You are only supposed to drink out of two of them because taking all three is just greedy. I had to participate, right?! They have these long tin cups on sticks that you use and then stick into a U V light to steralize it after you’ve used it haha. I totally knocked a lady in the head becaue the handles are so long. Oh well, life goes on. I picked…crap I don’t’ remember what I picked. They weren’t really even marked anyway. Oh well. Haha. So, we kept on walking and made it back to the bus as the temple was closing anyway. There were so man y people crammed onto that bus, I had no idea how we would be able to fit one more perons. But we made it back to the train station all right and then back to Tokyo. Thank goodness! It was definitely a fun filled day, especially when it ended with some ice cream. It’s a sad thing hen you are addicted to ice cream. Haha. What a good night.

Stuck Stuck Stuck

2010-07-18T18:17:00.000-06:00

Today was definitely an early morning. We had to be down in the lobby by 6 a.m. in order to make our early morning direct flight to Tokyo. We got ready and were just about ready to leave the room when we got a random call. It was one of the leaders and he told us to go back to bed, that we had missed the flight, and that we should just wait until further notice. We were really confused as to what was going on. We found out that there was a mistake on the Itinerary and that Delta had changed the flight time to two hours ahead of what it was previously. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, no one from the group or BYU was notified, and so when the leaders called to find out if the flight was on time, they found out that the flight really left in 20 minutes. So, it spurred a long day full of trying to get 20 people to Japan. We really wanted to make it in on Sunday because we wanted to go to Kyoto, Japan (to see the ancient temples and shrines) and ride the bullet train on Monday.
We munched on our boxed breakfasts that the hotel prepared for us (because we were leaving before breakfast opened for the day) and some of the smarter people in the group actually just went down to breakfast (we weren’t supposed to, but they didn’t know. I wish I would have gone too...I wanted more French toast! Haha).
It took the leaders a couple of hours, but they got half of the group booked on a partner airline’s flight to Korea with the hope that we would be able to get on a second flight to Tokyo. We got everything out of the hotel and got onto the bus to head to the airport. Delta said that they could probably switch everyone over to the new flights, but that we had to be at the airport in order to do it.
We got to the airport and began a long day of waiting…and waiting…and waiting. It took forever, but they finally got us all booked through to Tokyo. Happy day!
We got through exit customs, got checked in our flight, and got all set and ready to go to Korea.
The flight wasn’t too bad, and the girl from the group who was sitting next to me on the plane got “hit on” (not really) by one of the male flight attendants. He saw the book that we were reading as a group and asked about it. He almost went to BYU apparently! So we all had a fun little chat about that. He was such a nice guy.
In Korea, we had about an hour to get our new boarding passes (they didn’t want to let us through new country security because we didn’t have the boarding passes originally) but everything got taken care of pretty quick. Throughout the airport, they have these cultural centers that foreigners can go to and learn about the Korean culture. They had people dressed up in really cool clothes and they were playing this great authentic Korean music. I love Korea!
Anyway, a few people got dunkin’ Donuts, (I didn’t, but I did try a watermelon doughnut…haha), and a Lion bar and we got on the plane. I wanted to get these dark chocolate Kit Kats, but I decided I didn’t want to pay $10 USD for them. Haha.
This second flight was pretty short as well. We had this kind of nasty beef and rice thing with tofu, but the water and dessert was good haha. They had little tvs that you could watch things on so I switched in between the nobel peace prize concert and america’s funniest home videos. AFV had some great clips this round haha. We had some pretty good laughts on the plane haha
We made it to Tokyo! But it wasn’t the end of our journey. First, we had to get through customs (easy)..then get japan rail passes (easy, but time consuming) and last, we had to try and catch the last express train from the airport to the station by our hotel (hard…because of the lack of time). I knew we’d be okay though. The rail passes took a while because they have to write all of them out by hand. (as a side note…Japan is super advanced technology wise, but they have to hand write out the train passes? Go figure.)
We got the passes and had about 5 minutes to make it to the track that our train was on. We missed the last express, but the other train wasn’t too bad. It was nice and comfortable, we just had to switch lines in the middle. Oh well. Its all part of the adventure.
We finally got to the hotel and put our things away. The A/C is okay, we just got really spoiled at the 5 star Regent in China. Haha. It’s still a super nice hotel though.
A few of us were really hungry (we hadn’t really had a real meal all day) and so we went exploring around the area. There is a McDonalds right behind the hotel, so we went over there hoping to have some cheeseburgers or something. It said it was open 24 hours all over the building, and then we found out that they closed at 11! What the heck!
So we went to this convenience store around the corner (which really is open 24 h) and got some food. I felt adventurous and got this ramen thing that looked like it was chicken flavor. The ramen here is much better than in the US. And it definitely was NOT chicken. I think it was a beefy/seaweed, so that made saltily interesting to eat haha.
And having free internet again is nice. I sure am spoiled. And grateful. But not gratefully spoiled. That sounds too pretentious.
Anyway, life is good. Oh, so good.

Study abroad students hiked the great wall, and hiked, and hiked, and hiked, and hiked, and hiked, and hiked, and hiiiiiiiiked.

2010-07-17T10:13:00.000-06:00

July 17, 2010
Today was the last official day in China. Really, it has been much better than I thought it was going to be. And today, really solidified how awesome China is. I woke up really early again, and so I ran down to the gym (trudged would be a better word…but ran sounds more exciting), and ran a bit on the treadmill and went for a quick dip in the pool. We had to be up early anyway because we were going to the great wall of China in the morning! I got ready and went down for breakfast and got some more good food. The breakfast buffet is really pretty darn awesome. They give you all you can eat, and there is such a variety of food, and its pretty much all gourmet! I love the omelets, French toast, and even veggie/egg sushi. I didn’t really like their other kinds. Yum. I grabbed some stuff and headed out because we were running out of time before we had to leave.
We were on the bus for nearly 2 hours it felt like, even though the drive was only something like 30 or 40 miles. There was just a LOT of traffic and all the traffic moved really slowly. But finally, we got to the great wall and it really kind of jumps out of nowhere, and it is REALLY long. We went to a less touristy spot, and it was kind of nice. It wasn’t a wide as it is in some places, and that actually was kind of nice. You could get views from both sides of the wall with only a second or so in between. We wanted to take a picture as a group before we went up and climbed it (It literally was a climb, and we could go one of two ways…the less steep way, or the really steep way.) Anyway, we took the picture and then all these Asians kept wanting to come and take pictures with us…so what we thought was going to be a minute turned into 10 minutes. It was so funny! We all felt like rock stars and we all loved taking pictures with the people. The cutest ones were the kids. It was so fun to see how excited they were to see such a big group of white people. Haha. I love China.
I decided to take the steep side. And it was STEEP. Much steeper than I thought. I did really well for a while, and my legs didn’t burn much, but after a while, they started burning pretty good. But surprisingly enough, I loved every minute of it. I had to keep reminding myself…this isn’t just any climb…I’m on the great wall of China! It was really cool too because the section that we were in had actually been used in defending Beijing during some of the historical wars in China. Kind of cool to imagine how it all worked. We got a lot of pictures on the way up and down, and whats really funny is that there was this shirtless dude who started up the wall after our group and he totally lapped us…he was up and down before we were, and he stopped and talked to us a couple times and to other people on the way too! Haha. Its Crazyness I tell you.
We got down from the wall, and Joseph and Chad were nice enough to buy us ice cream. I decided to get my Nestle product for the day (haha) and the ice cream cone was quite good.
We ate and then jumped back on the bus. The bus driver was trying to pull the bus out of the area and there was this big tour group of Chinese people, a lot of whom were just sitting on the ground. What is crazy is how close the bus got to them! I seriously think that the bus got within 6 inches of this older grandma, and finaly someone got the group tot move out of the busses’ way. It seems like the busses are always just kind of squeezing through areas. Insanity! We got caught in more traffic on the way out, and it took us more than an hour to go about a mile. But, we passed a lot of tour busses with more Chinese people on them (lots of kids) and they saw us and just started waving and taking pictures. Haha. The more we waved or gave peace signs, the more they loved us. And the more we loved them! It was so much fun.
After we got out of all the traffic, the next step was the Birds’ Nest and Water cube, two of the main Olympic Venues from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Man, I wish we could have toured both, and that we could have spent more time there or even gone at night. I bet it would have been awesome. It was so cool to see them in person, even if from a distance. We got some good group pictures and then had to leave. What was really funny is that as we were leaving, the police came through the Olympic square there and all the people who were selling stuff in the area totally scattered; I guess it is illegal to sell stuff in the square. Haha.
Back to the bus and we were off to the Silk Market. More time for fun shopping! We got there and I pulled out some more money (I don’t know why), ran to McDonalds for some lunch because we hadn’t eaten in forever, and finally re-entered the market to shop. It is so hard to keep track of people in the market! Seriously, when you stop to look at something or even if you just turn around, its so easy to lose the group of people that you are with (largely I imagine because our group consists of girls who are shorter than 5’6”…but I’m not judging haha). It was seriously fun though and there were a lot more going on than there was at the pearl market the day before. I got some really awesome deals on a few awesome things, which I can’t really write about here, because some of the things will be gifted to…who knows…it could be you! Anyway, one thing I will show is this really unique piece of art. The guy sits at the table and dips his hand into a dish of ink and then moves it around the piece of paper making these amazingly detailed pictures of Chinese scenery. They were beautiful! And a lot of them go together in pairs or trios. So, he wanted about $20 bucks for one…first I told him $15 for 5, but I got him down to $15 for 4. Not too bad. They really are nice…so nice I may have to keep them for myself!
I switched in between groups multiple times depending on where I was and what I wanted to look at, and it got to the point where I really got separated from the rest of the people who were shopping. No good. I couldn’t find them and I knew a ton of them had already left, so I decided to brave the metro myself and go home. It was only 3 stops away anyway, and I couldn’t/didn’t want to take a taxi ($$). So, I took my big bag of loot and braved the crowded Beijing Subway on my own. It was pretty awesome, actually and it wasn’t super crowded which was super nice. I wasn’t complaining about htat a bit.
I came out of the subway stop and saw three of my friends going to dinner. They said they would wait for me and so I went into the hotel to drop off my stuff. We ended up meeting with a few other people in the group and went to this place called the Sunshine House. I decided to get fried rice noodles with vegetables. It was good, but much different than I thought It would be. Chinese food isn’t the same Chinese food as you find in the states haha. I really liked it though, the veggies were just different than I expected. I also tried a friends beef curry and it was awesome! A great meal to end the Beijing portion of the trip.
A group of us decided to meet up and go swimming/hot tubbing as well, and it was really fun. I had a competition with one of my friends, Shalece, and I totally won haha. We were trying to see who could go the furthest in the pool without breathing. After a few tries, I made it from one end to the other (about 25 m). haha. Fun times.
I took another friend out to find somewhere to eat, almost watched Toy Story 3 (Its China, remember) and then packed my heart out (or my suitcase, whichever you prefer) before hitting the sac. A long and hard day, but a very fun and rewarding day. I love China, and I love this trip. I can’t believe there is less than a week left. Good times.

Chopstix, Durtles, and man bags. Don't judge me.

2010-07-16T10:12:00.000-06:00

July 16, 2010
Last night was nuts. I couldn’t sleep. I went to bed around 2:45 am because I was helping a friend back in the states with an application for an internship as he had an interview the next morning, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to meet up with him before the interview. So…late bedtime and I couldn’t fall asleep. I laid in bed, rolled over, switched positions, read, listened to music and everything and nothing would work. So, around 6:15 ish, I got up and went to the gym and had a pretty good workout. I even used some weights, stretched, and swam. I love swimming! And, the gym and pool at the hotel are really nice, so it made working out that much more fun. I went back to the room and got ready for the day and then went to go have breakfast. Once again, I have to say…I love the breakfast here. It is so good compared to some of the breakfasts that we’ve had haha. Glorious!
Our first meeting for the day was actually at the hotel in one of the upstairs conference rooms. We met with Giordano, a clothing company/store line primarily in the Asia market. It was really interesting talking with the 2nd man in command for this MNC (Multi-national corporation) and discussing some of his company’s business decisions. We definitely some interesting things haha. We finished up his visit with a trip to one of their stores that happens to be pretty close to our hotel…its only about a 15 minute walk. The clothes were nice, but more than I wanted to pay. I guess last year the study abroad group got a 50% off deal, but this year we didn’t. If we got the 50% off deal, I’d definitely have bought some stuff. Haha.
Lunch was at Yokishaya or whatever it is but it wasn’t very good this time around. And they gave me the big bowl instead of the small one, and I couldn’t finish it. Weird. But as always, there is ALWAYS room for ice cream (from McDonalds). Haha. It definitely hit the spot.
We gathered as a group again and got on the subway to go to the Forbidden City. We crowded on and I was with one of my friends named Ashley in a different car than some of the others in our group. We got pushed to the center of the car and went the few stops that we needed to go and the time came to get off…except we couldn’t. There were so many people who were trying to get onto the train that they blocked us from squeezing our way out. Finally, as the buzzer was beginning to ring, I squeezed out of the car and grabbed the hand of my friend Ashely and yanked her out of the car as well. It was insane! We definitely ha a pretty good laugh over it.
Off to the forbidden city. Man. It is big. It felt like it never ended! The lamest part is that we only had about 45 minutes-1 hr to explore the place and see everything. I had so much more that I wanted to see and explore, but we at least got to hit a lot of the main buildings as we walked through. I had to stop and read about each one ,and I know I was annoying some of the people I was with (Sorry Brittany, Erika, and Joseph :-D) haha. But…I was glad that we had the time we did. The architechure is beautiful and so intricate, and the color is amazing. It is hard to believe that most of it was built (and later restored…but still) thousands of years ago. Craziness.
We were all thirsty so we went to a little shop in the city and got waters. Well, let me clarify…we attempted to get waters/drinks. One of us paid and he said we didn’t pay, even though he had the money in his hand. But, we got it all worked out. Then I paid and another girl paid, and we grabbed the water and he said we didn’t pay. We argued with him for a few minutes…and he took one of the waters back and kept the money! We argued with him a bit more (in very broken English…he didn’t really speak any at all) and then just left. It was only 3 yuan, which is really like 30 cents. Not worth my time. So, we went and waited for the group and I got some cool pictures of cute families there at the “palace museum” as they call the forbidden city. After everyone showed up, we started walking out to the bus when we were stopped by a bunch of asians wanting to take pictures with us. Haha. It was awesome! We were there for probably 10 minutes taking picture after picture after picture and then we headed out to eh bus for real. There were a lot of sellers selling things on the streets and beggers too. The worst was when this adorable little boy came up and grabbed my shirt and started tugging on it and walking with me. He started crying and begging and tugging on my shirt. My first impulse was to protect my belongings in my pocket, and then I had to just kept telling him no. We were told not to give. It is sad, but it’s the way it has to be.
We made it back to the bus and headed to the pearl market. I pulled out some money earlier in the day (and later realized that I had lost my ATM card…I’m pretty sure I left it in the ATM Machine…bummer) and was ready to shop. I decided I was going to just walk around and see what was available before I went shopping for real. The sellers in China know how to bargain and they know how to get customers. They will call you, and if you touch it its basically as if you buy it. And, they will even grab you as you are walking by in order to get you into the store. If I was looking at buying something, I’d often get blocked into the store haha. It was pretty entertaining actually. I did get ripped off a few times, but that is all part of the learning process. I will not describe what I got because I don’t want the surprise of the gifts to be revealed haha. But, I did get some awesome deals.
While I was there, I decided to look for a man bag They are pretty popular in Europe and asia, so I figured I should join in right? Haha. Well, while looking at different types, I met a seller named Kiko. She was really nice and helped me out a ton. I liked her so much I even brought a friend back to her later in the day. I wanted to buy something from her but just didn’t find anything at her store that I wanted enough to buy. Bummer. She was stinking awesome though.
It was also funny talking to some of the people in the group about how they barter with the people. Some of the people in the group were rather ruthless in their tactics and really got things down, but others were way too soft and overpaid a lot. Interesting to see the different variables. Haha.
We met as a group and went back to the hotel in the bus. A few of us went to Pizza Hut for dinner (sound familiar? I hope not because if it did I’d know you weren’t paying attention haha.) It was kind of pricey, but not too bad really…and it was really quite good. By this time, I was exhausted having had a day pretty much of no sleep. I was so tired, that I kept falling asleep in the restaurant while we were waiting for the meal (plus, it was warm in the restaurnt, which didn’t make things any easier.) I napped for a few minutes while we waited (there were 3 of us) and after probably 15 minutes, I was good to go. Mcdonalds for ice cream/dessert (now, does THAT sound familiar? ;-)
It seems like that is how I have consistently been for the last while. Sleep for a few minutes, and then go for a while…then sleep for a few minutes, and then go for a while haha. Its been working … although, I’ve been consistently tired. Gotta love it.
So, I went home and right before we left it started pouring. IT was awesome though, because with my shoes I could slide on the sidewalk a pretty good distance. What made it cool (besides the sliding) was that all these people on the sidewalk were pointing and talking about me sliding haha. It was pretty funny. I laughed an inside laugh. Ha. Ha. Haha. ☺ It was quite fun, and I’d totally do it again.
I puttered around for a while, and then fell asleep. Man…it was so good to get into bed. ☺

I want to be a Chinese acrobat.

2010-07-15T10:11:00.000-06:00

July 15, 2010
First full day in China! I’d decided yesterday to meet up and go swimming in the pool before we had to be ready for our business visit. It was AWESOME. The pool/gym here rocks. It is big, deep, and super nice. Not too chloriney either. We hottubbed it up as well. I wanted to work out in the gym and go running or lifting, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the treadmill. There was a video screen showing TV, but no buttons on the entire thing! I gave up after 5 or 10 minutes and just went swimming.
Breakfast was another wonderful event as well. They have a buffet breakfast serving a lot of types of food, and its all gourmet. Phenomenal. They have this great French toast, maple syrup, pancakes, sushi, Japanese and Chinese food, lots of great fruit, breads, omelets or fried eggs, toast, and fresh juices (including watermelon juice.) Nice. It was great.
We had our morning classes and then we got on the metro and went to the station we thought was the right one. Well, it was the right one, but three people (including the police/military man) told us to go the wrong way. Then, it started raining. Hard. I’m not talking about a cute little drizzle that makes the garden look happy outside. I’m talking about torrential downpour to the point that you think you possibly have soiled your pants. Okay, maybe not that hard…but definitely somewhere in between. We walked around for about 30 minutes trying to figure out where to go (and almost got hit by a number of taxi’s because they DON’T STOP for pedestrians…and by don’t stop, I mean…don’t stop.), then we tried to take a taxi to the business visit but they had never heard of the Marriott Hotel. (Ironic, because it was about 3 blocks away). Anyway, we finally found the place about 45 minutes late, and then were missing about 3 people from our group (They had taken a different turn than the rest of the group and made it to the hotel while we waited down the street for them. Haha.)
The business visit with the JW Marriott (high end) hotel was great. We even got to have a tour of the premises, see how the staff got around behind the scenes, and saw the inside of the “Presidential Suite”, which Hillary Clinton stayed in a few months before. Presidential is mild for how awesome that room is. W.O.O.W (That stands for wow..ooo….oooooah…wow. So elaborate, I know.)
We saw the lobby of the Ritz too. The Regent, which is where we were was better ;-)
At night, we went to an official Chinese Acrobats Show. Holy crap, I sat through the entire show with my mouth open just thinking…W.O.O.W. Okay, it was more like, “Holy crap, I want to do that,” or, “Holy crap…HOW do they do that,” but more often than not, it was “HOLY CRAP…HOW THE CRAP ARE THEY DOING THAT?” (Please forgive my “dirty” uses of words. But to be authentic, that is what I was thinking.)
No words can really describe how awesome it was. The body is amazing, and the Chinese take it to a whole new level. So, I’m going to start working on getting down a handstand again. And being able to do a bunch of pushups. (which is ironic that I say this right before I tell you about dinner.)
So, we went to McDonalds for dinner ☺ Theres nothing like a good ‘ole cheeseburger and hot fudge sundae. We realized we were just down the street from a cool market, so after dinner we went to explore the area (found gelato, but I decided to keep my “ice cream to a minimum for the day…I’d already had a hot fudge sundae and an ice cream cone). The market was really cool. There was great food to eat (squid, octopus, starfish, seahorse, bugs, insects, and of course, scorpion. See the video below. :-D Look very closely.
We found these really awesome lasers, which some say are illegal. Who knows. So, we bought some. Stephen bargained the price way down, and we got three. Happy day! (The funny thing is, we got a better one at a lower price the next day. Go figure. Haha)
We had a blast playing with our new toys and I’m sure that will continue for a long time. I love China ☺

Here comes the sun...do do do do do.

2010-07-14T10:10:00.000-06:00

July 14, 2010
What a weird day. So much of it “technically” consisted of travel because we were in the air most of the day. I’m not really sure of where to start documenting, since we traveled throughout the night. Haha. I guess the day really started in Dubai, which is actually a really cool place. Technically we only were in the airport, but I’d go back for the airport! Actually, when we were flying in, I had a window seat and I’m pretty sure that I saw the (now) tallest building in the world. Crazy cooleness! Anyway, we got the airport and realized…man this is a cool place! Haha. They even have a Cosi and a Burger King...and a prayer room (they actually seem to be pretty popular for airports in this part of the world) And, the transfer rate between their currency and the dollar is really pretty good. I got a bottle of water for about 30 cents. Yes! Anyway, we landed and got ready for class. Class on a layover! But it actually was really good. We discussed one of our Harvard cases that revolved around a clothing company. (We actually are going to have a business visit with the clothing company later this week. Random thought, the toilets there were pretty cool. I don’t know why, but seeing the different toilets throughout the world is really interesting (granted, its an airport), but still. So, with that being said, these toilets have tobe documented! Gotta love the toilet pictures.
We went around and ate (Cosi and BK) and bought a few things here and there. It really was pretty good and I wouldn’t have minded staying there a bit longer. But alas, our 4 AM plane departure time came and we had to go. We were missing one member of the group, but he showed up at the last (or so haha) minute and we all were on the plane. Keeping 20+ people together is really kind of rough sometimes! Haha. When we got our boarding passes and information in Milan, I was the last person in line and so as weird as it is, I only got a ticket for the flight from Milan to Dubai, and I was placed on standby for the flight from Dubai. So, I ended up being placed in an area all by myself. I wasn’t paying attention and I went too far. When I realized that my row was way ahead of where I was, I started back and started getting really excited because I was getting closer and closer to first class. Could it be that I was bumped into first class?! I looked at the row numbers and I had a long way to go number wise, but not a very long way distance wise. I moved closer and closer to the front of the section and….I WAS almost IN FIRST CLASS! Haha. I was the row right behind the first class cabin. Dangit! So close! Some day…
It was another Emirates flight on a Boeing 777 and boy..it was NICE. I could flight like that anytime. I didn’t have a ton of legroom because I was the first row in the section. The Emirates line brings you a warm towel to clean up with before the flight starts, which is actually really nice. And, the coolest part was that we had a ROCKIN entertainment system. You have about 3000 hours of music to listen to, about 50 hours of the world cup (which had just ended), as well as about 100+ movies in different languages to watch…a lot of which were pretty darn new. And, you can start, stop, rewind, start over and whatever else during the entire flight. I started with the film Broken Hill, which is like August Rush, but in Austrailia or New Zealand or something. Pretty good. Then, The Ghost Writer, which I mostly slept through (not because it wasn’t good, but because I was tired…at least that’s what I tell myself haha..) in Rome (hilarious) and selections from the Princess and the Frog (gotta love that music!).

I think the coolest thing about it all was that while everyone else was asleep, I opened up the window and could almost see the curvature of the earth, but more importantly I could see the sun rising. Realize, that this is around 4 AM for me, haha but it was still really beautiful.
We had a good breakfast…more croissants (I actually was starting to get kind of tired of them…surprising I know) and a super teeny bowl of fruit. I was very surprised at how small the bowl was…I think it had 4 pieces of fruit in it. Like…four small chunks. Nice. Haha. Yet, still good.
7 hours after leaving dubai, we had jumped ahead another 4 hours and made it into China around 3 PM. I was in front of everyone so I went to the top of the escalator and waited…and waited….and waited when I realized that the group was probably waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. So, I walked back into the arrival area and looked down..and there they were. One of the guys saw me and said, “haha there he is”. Yup. So, they all came up and we went through Customs. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, though they kept asking me about my boarding pass and I couldn’t remember where I put it. But they stamped my passport! I was sure excited. Yes! We jumped on a short train to get to the exit area and then saw a sign of awesomeness…”BYU Marriott School.” It was our Bus driver and crew. Super cool. We got all set up with the bus and headed to the hotel. The trip was only about 30-45 minutes, but that was mostly because of traffic. Seeing Beijing as we drove in was really cool. We checked into the hotel and I was in a group of three for this go around, which was actually pretty cool. And, I have to say…this hotel ROCKS. They tell us it is a 5 star, and I can pretty much believe it. They even had ice already in the bucket for us when we got there (ICE!), real A/C, robes, a nice bathroom, comfortable beds (well, the pull out beds which is what I was on were okay) and a great view of the city below.
We met as a group and then braved the insanely crowded subway system (I’ll try and get a picture on here later…seriously crazy…more details later) and went to Tiananmen Square. As usual, it was much different than I thought it would be. They had these HUGE tv screens in there (I assume from the olympics) and they had videos playing, probably related to the world expo in Shanghai going on right now. They had to be at least 30 or 40 feet long and probably 10 feet high. Nuts. The square scoots right up next to their equivalent of the capitol building, where the politicians meet. Mao’s tomb thing is in the center of the square. I guess he wanted a square where all the people in china could gather (he’d need a much bigger square..but its still super big). We walked around the whole square, watched a flag lowering ceremony (quite interesting) and then the police/military force kicked everyone out of the square after the ceremony (probably around 8 pm.) Interesting evening. We jumped back on the subway and went back to the hotel. A few of us were really hungry as we hadn’t eaten for the majority of the day so we explored the area and found a McDonalds (thank goodness!) But, we didn’t eat there haha. We went to this Yokiyama or something place that served fast food Japanese style. It was mostly rice, and then beef or chicken and veggies. I got the chicken and veggies and it really hit the spot. Plus, I got practice eating with chopsticks. Yes! We of course had to stop at McDonalds after and get some ice cream…especially when you can get a fudge sundae and an ice cream cone for about $1.00 US. Man, I love china. Haha.
Bedtime. And it is good.

The travel begins. And doesn't end.

2010-07-13T10:08:00.000-06:00

99% of today was a travel day, and that really was okay. My roommate woke up around 8 a.m. and went to breakfast, and I slept longer. I technically could have gotten up when he did, but what was the point? I was going to be awake on the plane pretty much the whole time anyway.

I grabbed some breakfast and finished getting ready to go to CHINA. Packed, ready to go, and we all started walking towards the train station where we could catch a bus. Go figure. We got there and headed out. I love italy. Can I just say that? I would love to go back some day.

At the airport, I think I was the last person to check in. It didn’t bother me. Even when they told me I didn’t have a seat yet for the flight from Dubai to China. I was on standby, but I could check in with them and get an updated boarding pass before I got on the plane. Sweet. If I got left in Dubai…maybe I’d get to go outside. J Anyway.

We got to the gate and there was a huge line. I went to the counter and told them my name…and they had a boarding pass for me. With a seat. Oh joy! Haha. The best part was that I got to skip the line and just get on. bOoya!

The flight to Dubai was pretty good. I annoyed the teacher for at least a half hour as I worked on finishing the homework, watched a movie or so, and ate the food they brought. Emirates airlines is officially one of my favorites. Plus, they have cool outfits. The airlines in the US don’t wear hats. Hats spell coolness. They need to get the hint.

In dubai, we landed far away and had to take a bus into the airport. So…I’ve Officially been to Dubai. How sweet is that! I’ve breathed the air, touched the ground, and saw the super tall building with its lights on at night. Man. I rock.

I love Italy.

2010-07-12T15:09:00.006-06:00

July 9
Our first full day in Italy, and boy was it a good one. My roommate and I slept through the alarm or something, so we missed breakfast. Apprenetly its nothing great, but still…we missed breakfast! I was secretly happy thought, because I wasn’t very hungry after our escapades with good pizza and gelato. So, we grabbed some granola bars, and after just kind of hanging out for an hour or so, we went to try and find an international phone card for my roommate, so he could call his pregnant wife. At least she has been spending her time in CA, where life is always beautiful haha.

iWe found a card and then hustled back to the hotel to make it ontime to our group meeting. We found out fhat one of the members of our group had ended up going home early because of some health issues. What a bummer. The person was really nice, so I hope they get better quickly. Bummer.
Italy likes to randomly have train and trolley strikes I am told, and today was one of those chosen days. So, the public transit system was closed for the day, however, it was randomly opened at other times. I didn’t get it. Whatever. We were going to have to walk about 2 or 3 miles to our business visit for the day, which was with Pirelli Tires.

The visit was really important to be fresh for, so we’d have to work extra hard to be on our game, since we’d be walking the whole way. Boy, was it hot! I’m sure I sweat at least a litre in the hour or so it took to walk. Haha. No bueno. Anyway, we all had fun with eachother as we walked and had fun chatting along the way. We got to the business place and began our one hour meeting. The business visit rocked! We had so much fun talking with them about their business model and how they are overcoming tcurrent media challenges. It was really awesome. And…they gave us FREE HATS! How could life get any better? By this time it was around 4 PM, and none of us had eaten lunch, so we were all ready to eat. On the way, we’d stopped at this small pizzeria for water and to slightly freshen up. We were going to go back to the pizzeria and eat as a group, but when we tried…theyw ere closed! Which was weird, because they said they would be open until after 6. Weird. We went to a mall, and they didn’t have enough food to feed us all, and we walked around looking for other places, and they were all closed too! We couldn’t find anywhere to eat! I guess all the businesses closed down for a 3 or 4 hour siesta style thing, so we finally found a grocery story and we just got water and juice and snacks.

The professors bought us some popcicles too, which tasted quite good. I got some grapes and they were great, but they weren’t seedless, so that was an adventure for sure.
We walked back and clead up and then go to go back out as a group for dinner. The teachers took us to this awesome pizzeria with real homemade thick crust pizza that is cooked in the fire. It was just margherita pizza, but it was AWESOME!

They had this awesome olive oil hot sauce to put on it too…it just had some crushed pepper in it…and it made the taste even more great. The sauce was so perfect..it wasn’t too sweet, but still felt super fresh. I loved it!
They decided to give us gelato too, so we went to this reportedly awesome gelato place…and the place didn’t dissapoint. I, of course, got dark chocolate and yogurt (again) and it was very rich on both accounts.

We walked towards to Duomo, which is the main cathedral of the city. When we got there, it just kind of popped up out of no where. The building took hundred of years to build, and was absolutely amazing to se. I only which that I could have gone and seen it when it was open. It would be awesome.

Across the street from the duomo is the galleria, which is the big shopping area downtown. In the galleria is a bull mosaic with his balls beared in all their glory. Apparently, its good luck to dig in a heel and take a spin on the bulls’ balls. So…needing all the good luck I can get (reportedly, it also gives you power over your enemies, success, luck in love, better sex, etc.and who knows what else they say it will help with), I had to take a spin. I still feel the same, but who knows. Maybe the luck is on my way! Haha.

As we began walking back towards the hotel, we came upon another gellateria, and the two professors wanted to stop. So…I decided to at least check it out. And, of course, I had to try the dark chocolate ☺ It was great…possibly even better than the first. I love dark chocolate gelato ☺
Back to the hotel, got a few minutes to talk to my family on the internet, and simmered down. What a great night. I love Italy. Then again, theres not many places I don’t love. But seriously. I love italy.

The "birth" of Cheese.

2010-07-12T10:08:00.000-06:00

July 12, 2010
Happy Monday! Today we got a charter bus and went to a small(ish) town called Parma. It is the home of Parmesan Cheese…so we knew we would be in for a really good day. We had to be ready to go really early in the morning…at 7 a.m.! And breakfast normally doesn’t start until 7 a.m., so that created a little bit of a predicament. Luckily, they opened the breakfast doors early and so hordes of us hungry BYU students flooded the small breakfast room at 6:58…shoving globs of food into our faces like our lives depended on it. Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme, but we really only had about 5 minutes to grab something to eat and then head out to the bus. We had a number of surprises today that really made the day more interesting. First, we got on the bus and it was super smokey. Apparently, our driver has a nice little habit that he likes to share with his passengers (more on this later). After we all got cancer from inhaling the smokey air, we were off. It took about 1.5 hours to get to Parma. We met up with our tour guide for the day and he led our driver out to a small factory about 30 minutes away where they manufacture Parmesianno Reggiano cheese. It’s a specific brand of cheese that is supposed to be very high quality. We got to tour the plant, and honestly, I had no idea that it took so much wok to get the freaking cheese out and to market. The cheese is all natural too, which is really cool. First, they milk the cows and let some of the milk sit over night. Then, they mix it with some other stuff in this super big vat, which makes the milk curdle and start becoming cheese. It all comes together at the bottom and then at the perfect moment, the master cheeseman lifts the cheese up (it’s at that moment that parmesan cheese is born…yup. Born. No joke.) And then over a few month/year process they compact the cheese, burn the tops and bottoms, help the cheese get its flavor through nearly a month of soaking in salt water, and then curing for up to 2 years. Yum. I have never seen so much cheese in my life. We got to taste a 3 month old and then a 24 month old set of cheese at the end and naturally, the 24 month cheese was much better.
After that tour, we set off for another one that would prove to be even more interesting. We drove for another 30 minutes towards a castle that was used in the 1980s movie, “Lady hawke”. Nearby, is a factory where they make the parma ham. It takes about a year to make the ham, and the only ingredients are salt, and ham. Its not cooked. Its barely even packaged. It’s a lot of salting (done by the master salter, and it wasn’t half bad. We tasted it as part of some prosciutto (I guess that is what it really is anyway) an ti really wasn’t terrible.
We stopped at the castle and walked around for a few minutes, but they were closed on Mondays so we weren’t able to go in. So, we headed off to the Barilla Pasta factory where we would have lunch.
By this time, we were all really hungry. But none of us were prepared for what would come out during our special lunch meal ( we were in a private lunch area. So cool).
As we sit there waiting for the ladies to serve us our plates we notice little purple things on the plates. As the ladies bring our individual plates in and serve them to us, we see long stringy arm looking things mixed in with the yellow potatoes on the plates. The things are purple, and there were little suction cups all along the legs. What was it? Octopus. So many people from the group got totally grossed out, and couldn’t finish their meal, but I was determined to be a part of the clean plate club. So…I did. I also didn’t know if this was the main course or no, an I was super hungry so I ate it all up.
But then, the lady came out with more. Large plates of penne pasta were served with mini shrimp. Balsamic Vinegar was a nice touch. I thought we were done, then another plate came out. More potatoes, and a filet of (super fishy fish…I’m not sure what it was.) This plate was good, but required a bit more balsamic to make it through. Plus, I’d committed to be a memnber of the clean plate club. I couldn’t stop now!
At last, they brought out a large bowl of salad and a pennecotta raspberry for dessert. It was so good, and a totally different consistency than I would have expected. I’d have some again for sure!
Oh..and yes. I AM a member of the freaking clean plate club. (I didn’t finish the salad, but seeing as its not a plate….well. You get the point.)
The next stop was the Barilla pasta factory. They make three types of pasta there, and then they also package the pasta, and ship it out. It was SO COOL. Actually, it was extremely hot because we had to wear these protective hats and coats, and the machines put off a lot of hot air, if you know what I mean…
Anyway, the tour was awesome. Everything happened so fast, and we got to try the pasta right as it was coming out of the machine. It was a bit doughy because it hasn’t dried, but it was surprisingly good! I would have never guessed making pasta was full of so much awesomeness. So, buy Barilla pasta. (I’m not biased…I promise ☺
Back on the bus and we headed to the Academia Barilla, which is a subsidiary of the Barilla company. They mostly focus on protecting the Italian cuisine as an art. We had a great presentation (minus the A/C…once again very “cool”,) and then got a tour of their facility. They do a lot of cuisine classes and a lot of other activities for normal people and practicing chefs. I’d totally go and learn how to do Italian! It would be awesome. They took us to their private library and showed us some really old/cool menus. The oldest one was from the 1500’s. Yeah, I touched a 500 year old menu. No big deal. And they had a bunch of menus that some artist (I don’t remember) would create for a group dinner party over and over. I touched it too, but that’s how cool it was…that I can remember what it is now haha.
Anyway, the day was long, but really rewarding. We got back in the bus and most everyone fell asleep on the way home. Me and a couple other guys wanted to see if anything downtown was open (they wanted to shop) and so we walked down towards the duomo. Italy (Europe) is much different from the US, simply because things here in Europe close so early compared to the US. We are brought up on stores that are open more often than not, where here they are open for maybe 5 or 6 hours a day total (that’s with a 3-4 hour break in the middle of the day). Not every place is like that of course, but we found a lot that were.
Not many places were open, but we found a few places here and there. Naturally, one of the stores that was open was more American in style. I didn’t go to Italy to buy underwear that has America and NYC plastered all over it. Haha. I made another good luck spin on the bulls’ balls, and then we found this indoor mall that was still open. First, it was 9 stories high! And second, I don’t really understand why people would ever shop there. Haha. Most of the stuff was all Louis Vuitton, or Gucci stuff, so it was crazy expensive. I think I saw a set of underwear for 90 Euro (Around 130 US,) and all that good stuff. Haha. Gotta love it. We were getting really hungry and started looking for somewhere to eat, but nothing was really working out. We kept seeing this random lady drive by and she asked us twice (unil she remembered we didn’t speak Italian) where something was. Haha. We seriously saw her like 5 times in 5 different places within a 20 minute span. Haha. Anyway, Everything was closed. But luckily, we found some pizza right before we got home. It was cheap and the piece was HUGE. I really like the margherita pizza here. In the words of my sister Annette, its “yumma-lumma.”
I love Italy. It is much different than I expected it to be, but I’ve heard that is how Milan is. We are in more of the business district so it’s a bit harder to go out and look at things at night, but what I have seen so far has been awesome. Life is good. Now, off to China.

Lake Como....on the lake.

2010-07-11T15:09:00.000-06:00

July 11, 2010
Today, although a quite interesting day was very enjoyable. For the first time this week, we got to see something other than Milan. The morning was relatively low key. It consisisted of my roommate waking up nearly an hour before me (I don’t know why..but its all good), and then breakfast, which was pretty good. They don’t cook their hard boiled eggs all the way through though, so it makes things pretty interesting ☺ But its all about the adventure! That’s what makes trips like these so fun.
We met with everyone around 10 AM and headed out for church. I guess they ended up changing the building that we were going to be going to, so we had some last minute transportation changes, and then we were off. Honestly, we spent a lot of time just going around looking for the church building. As a joke, one of the guys in the group started sing/praying “Heavenly Father...where is your building? And then one of the girls turned around and said…hey! That looks like a church building sign! And there it was. The meeting room was up a few flights, so we were a little confused…and then we had to knock and be let in. Unfortunately, because of our getting turned around and the like, we were a few minutes late. I neglected to mention…IT WAS SO HOT. I can’t even describe how hot it was as we were trying to make it to church…being dressed up with ties and everything, and then going into a hot building with no a/c…it was STILL HOT. We finally got cooled down during sacrament meeting…and the meeting was very good. I had a really significant realization during the meeting, and if you would like to ask me about it I’d be more than happy to tell you about my experience, but I don’t really want to write about it here. It’s a more one-on-one or one-on-few discussion thing ☺
Anyway, the members there were amazing, and they were really happy that we came to church at their building. We talked to a few of the members and missionaries, and then headed out. Back to the metro and back to the hotel. After changing, we grabbed something to eat and then went to Lake Como (or so we though), which is one of the most beautiful areas in Italy I’m told.
Our hotel is just about a 5 minute walk away from the central train station in Milan. Being ignorant, we thought that the tickets we bought from Milan to Lake Como left from that train station. However, we didn’t know that it actually left from a different station…and our train was scheduled to leave in about 10 minutes! It took us about 5 to figure out where we needed to go and then to jump on the train and another 8 to get to the station that we were stupposed to actually leave from. The good news is that we ran into another group (3 of our leaders and another girl) so we hung out with them and waited because they missed the train too. Haha. Ignorance is awesome…and once again, Its all part of the awesome adventure! We got all set up at the RIGHT train station and then the 3 leaders and I, and the girl started walking around the area in search of this cool castle that was nearby on the map. We went the wrong direction, but found a gelato place that was incredibly intriguing as it was called “Chocolat”. We walked in and I was in heaven. They had a few regular flavors of gelato (stracciacello, a few fruits), but they had white chocolate and about 6 or 7 different flavors of chocolate including milk, dark, and dark with chili pepper (After my pistacio experience last night, I wasn’t about to try that haha..and they don’t seem to be very willing to give free samples in most areas). So…I got the dark chocolate. 3 words…HEAVEN. (In Icecream). (If you’re thinking something right now about my choice of three words…Shut up. ;-) The dark was super dark and super good, and the white was really sweet. But the nice thing is that in a cone, its really easy to lick both at the same time which made it pure awesomeness. They even branded their cones, which made it all the cooler.
We made it on the train and began our trek out to Lake Como. The trip took longer than expected, but I had a great time chatting with some of the girls from our group. We really do have some amazing girls in our group.
After more than an hour on the train, we finally made it to the Lake. It was beautiful, and I can definitely say that I’d love to have a house there someday. Vacation of course ☺ We walked around for a while and ran into a few of the other people from our group who had made it up there an hour or so before we did. By this time, it was getting pretty hot and a few of us decided to jump overboard and into the lake. So…we did! I had to go change first, and found this nasty little bathroom to do the clothes switch, but all was well in Zion. The water was absolutely perfect. It was incredibly clear and so warm! And what could be bad about swimming with 5 girls! We swam around for a while, got out and dried off, and then a few of us got back in and swam some more. It was amazing. After that, we walked around some more around the lake (we only made it around half the lake as we only had a couple of hours to be at the Lake), took some pictures and then headed back towards the train station. Most of us were famished, so we found a nice little restaurant and sat down. Not everyone was hungry though, and the group that wasn’t went back to the hotel.
We sat down and had a few language problems at the beginning, but got everything cleared up pretty good. The group decision (by happenstance) was Lasagna. Ironically, during church one of the speakers likened the gospel to Lasagna, so I guess it made everyone hungry for it. The nice thing is that it wasn’t too expensive, and the even nicer thing was that it was very good food. I was super excited because they also had free balsamic vinegar and olive oil to go with their bread, which just makes the experience one hundred times better. I got my last few pictures of the lake and then we went back to the train station to head back to Milan.
The train was much different than the one we had on the way out. It felt much more like a school bus than anything else. We all sat together and just chatted on the whole way back, although it was pretty warm. We ran back into the teachers again, and they apparently went on a boat ride (which would have been awesome) and supposedly saw George Clooney’s House (he has a villa up there…I can’t imagine why haha. Anyway, we got back and watched the end of the World Cup…way to go Spain. Good work…I suppose you deserved it although I was secretly hoping that the Netherlands would win…I just didn’t want that freaking Octopus to be right! Haha.

Now, getting ready for bed and tomorrow we go down to Parma…home of parmesan cheese and other awesome food! (barilla pasta too). It should be fun! Then, Tuesday means we are off to China! So much going on..but don’t worry…the updates will keep on coming. Ciao!