ohhh man I am so sore right now. I went to an amusement park of sorts yesterday with Gaochang and Tianyi's family and some family friends. The main attraction at this park are various obstacle courses to cross a river. I would probably say there were around 40-50 types of bridges. There are wobbly platforms, rotating wooden beams, spinning barrels, and so much more. The goal is to try to get across without falling into the river, but people fall in all the time. If you've ever seen Most Extreme Elimination, many of the obstacle courses are very similar: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/190/1177160696_4.jpg. The river's about a meter high so there's no real danger of drowning. I really enjoyed these obstacle courses, but my feet are definitely not as coordinated as Tianyi's. Thus, I fell in on my first go. Now that I was wet, I just started trying all of them. It was loads of fun trying to master each bridge one after another. Spectators on the side would cheer people on and laugh heartily when people fell in. Boasting was a must.
There were other things in the park besides just obstacle courses. They had a mini archery range that I got to try for the first time. Somehow, I landed an arrow in the middle section of my target and won a deck of cards haha...probably just beginner's luck. They also had the typical carnival games and rides. Bumper cars, rotating cups, and a roller coaster, they had them all. I only went on the roller coaster ride though since spinning rides always make me queasy. The tickets were pretty hefty, 50 yuan a pop, which is around ~7 bucks just for one ride. The roller coaster ride itself was not very impressive, and I would say it wasn't worth the 7 bucks. It really doesn't match up to the ones back in the US.
Our group had planned on going to another spa (yeah...the kind of spa I described in my posts), but we all decided to go home since we were all pretty tired. It was nice to just relax and not have to go out and eat. I got a chance to see some old footage from when I was just 2 years old. I must say, I was a pretty pampered baby haha. I wouldn't even eat my popsicle by myself and had my mom bite off pieces for me and feed me bird-style. I also wasn't a very lively baby either, but I was cute :P If time travel is one day possible, I would travel back in time just to play with my toddler self. After some hilariously good flashbacks, I settled down to watch Requiem for a Dream. There's some really messed up stuff in this movie, and I'm never going to even think about drugs after seeing this movie. I liked the movie overall and recommend it if you can stomach some pretty explicit scenes.
7/15:
I made it clear to my relatives that I wanted to spend today with my grandparents (dad's side), the ones who raised me as a for the most part. It's time to finally get down to business. I brought the two chinese bibles with me to my grandparents place and gave it to my grandma first while my grandpa was outside smoking. I explained to her that this is what I believed in and asked her to read some of it. She really didn't read it much and said that she wouldn't understand it. I told her that most of it is just like story and that she wouldn't have any trouble with it. Overall, she seemed very disinterested in it :/ Whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she would change the subject to something else (about dating and marrying lol...) She explained that there were quite a few believers in her apartment complex, and that they've tried to invite her to church. I was quite surprised to hear this and asked her if she's ever gone to church. My grandma told me that the church is really far and she can't walk there because of her knees.. On top of that, she gets car sick very easily and her blood pressure rises when there's too many people. For her health, I didn't try to persuade her to try to go to church. I started to tear up when I realized that she would probably never be able to go to church and never experience fellowship. My grandma's always had the role of a traditional housewife and only thinks of those duties. She really hasn't had much exposure to school. She doesn't see how believing would change anything. At this point, I don't really know what else I can do but to continue to pray for them. If you guys wouldn't mind, please pray for God to open their hearts.
I gave my grandpa the other bible after he came back. My grandma had told me that he really doesn't believe in any religion. When I asked him why, he just told me he'll read the bible. He's old now, and is probably semi-senile now. Having a religious conversation with him at this point would not be possible. I fear I might have reached them too late :x However, I still have hope for both of them. My grandpa said he didn't believe in any religion before, but he's not sure right now. Hopefully God will really speak to him through the bible I gave him. That's my hope at least. For now, I really don't want to keep pushing the envelope, because I can sense their indifference. However, as a friend told me, I just have to keep trucking because it's all worth it for them.
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