I need a camera crew.

There are so many instances where I would give anything to have a video camera follow me around. So many things happen here that are just so difficult to explain and don't do justice to the story. I try my best, but actually living through the stories is just so different.

For instance, our Great Wall hike...I mentioned that our guide took us on a difficult route. Imagine using all fours climbing up rocks, grabbing onto tree roots, other rocks, branches, basically anything that might support you to get up the side of the mountain. There were several times that the people in front of me would grab a rock and it would come loose then tumble down the mountain...Or they would yell "That branch isn't sturdy, don't grab it!" It was hilarious, but it's hard to explain the absurdity, or as my friend Elijah would say "it got radical".  Honestly, in America, a tour guide never would have taken a group of people on a hike that difficult without us signing waivers or anything purely for liability reasons...

The other day we went home with a local students family to eat dinner at their apartment for the Dragon Boat Festival, which is a national holiday. Students at Tianjin got three days off of school for it, it's a pretty big deal in some parts of China. They fed us dinner and it was delicious and really cool to see a normal family's home here. When we were leaving, we piled like 12 people into a tiny elevator because their apartment was on the 26th floor (!!!). As we're piling in, one of our friends named Orin was walking in and the doors literally just started closing on him. In China, things like this are actually scary because you just never know...it seems like it's pretty much every man for himself out here. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't sensors on those doors... You could hear his water bottle in the side of his backpack crunching and his eyes were so wide as he was literally screaming. The doors opened again but they took their time. We laughed so hard we started crying. Another moment I wish I had on camera! Too freaking good.

Today was a PRIME example of this. Kat and I were on our way out to take pictures of campus and we saw our friends Garrett and Jonathan in the lobby. They said they were headed to Tianjin's Ancient Culture Street to shop around for a bit. We just decided to tag along, it was about a 20 min cab ride there. Btw, this isn't all that relevant, but I call Garrett a sponge for languages. He's fluent in Spanish and pretty much fluent in Chinese. If we go out, we love having him around because it's a nice safety blanket- our little genius. He's a prime example of the awesome kids we've met here that we never would have met otherwise!

Back to the market- it was older Chinese style buildings filled with little shops that sold paintings, trinkets, chopsticks, fans, leather goods, and other random knick-knacks. It was really fun watching Garrett interact with some of the vendors, people are always excited when they learn he can speak Chinese so well. It was cool, glad we made the last minute decision to go!

And now, for the real reason I'm blogging about this....the taxi ride back is what we will now refer to as the taxi ride from hell. I know I've talked about how crazy Tianjin traffic is, so generally speaking taxi rides are interesting (it's not unusual for us to get close enough to touch the vehicle next to us). But, today we lived really life "Crazy Taxi" (remember the arcade game where you speed through traffic and weave through cars and people?). It was INSANE. I would pay big bucks to have a recording of that cab ride. Garrett was in the front seat, me, Kat and Jonathan were in the back. We noticed he was a little aggressive early on, but the longer we were in the cab the more ridiculous his driving got.

We were coming within inches of people, cars, bike and buggys while going 30 mph at least. The four of us were actually screaming in terror the entire cab ride. At one point, the driver goes "Come on." to us (in English) in reaction to our screaming! Probably the only phrase he knows in English. At one point we were driving on the wrong side of the road so that he could turn left. He would be going like 30 mph and honking to warn pedestrians and bikers in front of us and then come within like one foot of them... Any Harry Potter fans out there? You know how the Knight Bus has to literally squeeze in between other vehicles? I'm 100% convinced our taxi did that, multiple times. There was one point where he passed a buggy that was in front of us and barely made it back into our lane without hitting a PARKED car dead ahead. We all screamed bloody murder. I was laughing so hard my stomach was cramping up. We kept asking Garrett how he was doing and he was just dying laughing/petrified in the front seat. At one point, he hadn't said anything in a bit and he calmly goes 'I'm crying.' Sure enough, he had tears rolling down his face because he was laughing so hard. Pulling up to the hotel, there were 5 buses on our right, and we needed to get into that lane in order to stop to get out. We all looked at the buses and go 'oh no...' Our driver proceeds to squeeze in between two huge buses, nearly takes out a biker on the other side of the buses and skids to a halt. We paid him as fast as was physically possible and when we got out Garrett literally touched the sidewalk. Cannot believe we made it back alive. Kat and I were talking about how we're going to tell that cab ride story for the next ten years...

I'm telling you, my life in China could easily be a reality tv show.

P.S. I got back on stage to sing more Taylor Swift last night at that same bar...what is this madness? I guess I lied about that being our last time out in Tianjin.