We Never Ate Fried Rice (China Part 9)

I know the subject of this blog has gotten pretty heavy pretty fast. I make no apologies for it. In fact, I hope it made you uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to ask yourself, "What can I do?"

Well, my friend, I'm still getting to that.

But before then, I figured I'd show you the rest of the trip.

Once the kids left, we had a sweet, unplanned time of worship. Some of us (admittedly me) could hardly choke through the words to the songs. The crying and sniffling never seemed to end.

We gradually floated back to our rooms to rest and presumably cry a little bit more.

We spent the afternoon grieving and praying for these kids.

It may seem a bit absurd, but once you're in that situation and your heart has been knitted to theirs, it's like a huge chunk of you is gone once they leave.

It's a lot to process at once, and the pure exhaustion of the week catches up with you.

But once we had our translator ceremony thanking them for all of their hard work we tried to clean ourselves up and pull ourselves out of bed again and keep on living.

Tori, Rob, and I went out with a staff member to explore the street markets.

Remember when I said the food wasn't so great? Well, it was just at camp that it was bad.

We're still not entirely sure what these are, but we called them hamburgers. We bought them from a street vendor and it was about one of the spiciest things I've ever been able to eat.

And it was so good.

 It was some sort of meat that came out of a crock pot looking thing, chopped up with some peppers, and ground into almost a thick paste then stuffed in a homemade pita-like bread.

Heavens it is good.

But if you get that sauce anywhere on your face, it burns like the fire of a thousand suns. (That's a bit dramatic, but it is stinking hot.)

For lunch the next day we ate family style in the upstairs of some restaurant down the street from our dorm.

 This was when I was especially thankful I packed a fork. I was able to get in there before the sweet and sour chicken was gone. And we had some really good shredded potatoes in a vinegar type base which I scooped out with my spoon. Another favorite was the fried bananas. Once you got over the insane temperature, they were incredibly tasty. (Apparently that's what the bowl of water sitting next to them was. Stupid foreigners.)

 There were some more questionable food items like lotus root which I was not brave enough to try. Tori wasn't a fan.

Be still my heart, I love these people.

For dinner we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant.

 You get a bunch of raw food and fry it up yourself at your table.

 Yep, it was questionable.

 The closest we got to bacon the whole trip.

 It was actually better than it looked.

 We were supposed to dip the tofu in the raw egg, but we fried it up instead.

Should I mention we went out for ice cream after almost every meal? Because we did. And it was so good.

And we went back for those Chinese hamburger things. So delicious.

Another little outing we had during the week was getting on a bus and going to a local supermarket. You have to lock up your belongings except for your money in a locker once you get in the store, so I don't have any pictures, but trust me, it was an experience.

The FDA definitely doesn't exist everywhere.

Instead of getting on the bus on the way back, we rode in these. Jenna, Jacob, Tori, and Me. All for 8 chinese dollars (or about $1.34 US). Boys, if you're looking to date cheaply, move to China.

We definitely got a cultural experience while we were there!