Procrastination is key...

This is definitely procrastination in action as I create this post. Instead of writing this blog post I should be finishing my chinese homework, studying my 25 new characters/vocabulary words, reading my transnationalism text, reading my international relations text, preparing my article review, writing my research proposal, or packing for my weeklong trip (which will probably happen next since it is the most fun out of all the things on my to-do list). Yes this is the week from hell. Lucky for my I have had my share of distractions already this week, and it is only Tuesday! Monday morning I woke up to another Monsoon. The winds were howling and the rain was pouring. This pictures can't do justice for how hard the wind was blowing those poor palm trees and the rain that is flooding the storm drains. Yuck. It can be entertaining to watch though when you don't want to be doing your homework, especially the people who get caught in it unprepared. ;-)

Monsoon

 After 8 hours of class, Emily and I decided to go to the mall in search of the swim suit I still need to get for our trip. Zhongshan Park is a seven story mall the size of lancaster mall. Seriously stack SEVEN Lancasters and you will have this place. Was there a swim suit in the whole place, nope, but did that get down my mood, nope. Nothing could disappoint me on this day because I was headed to Malone's. Some of the guys had been spreading word about Monday Night Malone's and I was intrigued. The deal on Mondays is a pint of beer and a burger for 50rmb, a steal of a deal, and I was craving a burger. I have never enjoyed a piece of beef so much. We went with a crowd of 11 and Emily and I both got Malone's House Burger- Cheddar cheese, onions, mushrooms, bacon, and the burger. YUM.

It was well worth the rain and the lack of a swim suit purchase.

Malone's

Today was all about the studying, meeting with Jojo (my tutor) and catching up on my pile of laundry. While it doesn't seem like much, I have ended my day feeling very accomplished. After our program meeting we went for dinner and were then pointed in the direction of a great pudding joint right out the back gate and had mango "pudding" which seems more like jello with fruit slices but who knows in this country. It was really good and some of the first "fruit" I have had since I got here with the exception of bananas. We will be going back there for sure. 

The rest of this week is going to consist of trying to get as much done as possible in a short period of time so that we can have the maximum amount of fun for 10 days straight.

SOOOO ExCiTeD!!!!

Daytrip to Suzhou

Yesterday we had an all day field trip to Suzhou (pronounced Sue-Joe). We were so excited to go, but not so excited to meet at the buses at 8am... on a Saturday. Luckily I was feeling much better than the previous 3 days and I was just happy to get out of my room regardless of what time it was. Unfortunately the weather was not fantastic either, but that wasn't going to keep up from having a good time. We got to the buses and made started off the day by making the wrong decision on which bus to board. The smaller bus also meant smaller, more uncomfortable seats, but we made the best of it by saying we just wanted to be on the "exclusive cool kids bus".  The bus ride, if done correctly, take about an hour and a half. Our bus driver did not do it correctly, he pulled over on the side of the freeway for reasons we still do not know and walked around the bus for a bit, then we got lost once we got into Suzhou and "toured" the city for a while looking for the first destination, the Silk Factory. It was worth the 45 minute delay because it was awesome! Not only did we get to walk right through the factory and watch the ladies work, but we also got to touch everything. The only thing they asked was that we "Don't take away the cocoons". The factory was a great experience and the store at the end had everything you could ask for, but being the cheap college student I am, I decided to wait until the markets to by my silk wardrobe.

The first stage- Live Silk Worms

Third stage- moths in cocoons (skipped the worms to moths stage)
Kevin and Drew are impressed

Fourth stage- sorting the cocoons (Tyler)

Fifth stage- Boiling the cocoons to kill the moths and soften the cocoons

Sixth stage- taking the silk from the cocoon
Eight individual threads (one comes from each cocoon) is needed to
make a single thread of silk to be used for clothing.

Final stage- Raw Silk

After the Silk Factory we got back on the buses only to get lost yet again. We spent another 45 minutes looking for the River Canal Tour. Once we made it we got off the buses and into 3 small river boats. The cruise was very interesting, but Suzhou is definitely not what I expected. All the pictures and reputations of Suzhou show a "Venice of the East" and "Canal town", they don't mention that it is a large metropolitan city with a small canal system and some preserved old buildings around it. The tour took us down the river and then turned around and came right back. They had a man on the small boat with us trying to sell us all sorts of tacky souvenirs. He managed to sell something to almost all of us so he must know what he is doing. Half way through the cruise where we turned the boats around an old woman was standing at her doorway (see picture below) cheering, giving thumbs-ups, and kissing the sky. We thought she must have been really excited to see us until we realized it had just started pouring and she was so thankful for the rain. She was praising the rain the was falling from the sky. I have never appreciated the rain as much as I did right then for that woman.

Laura and Emily

Me and Lucy

The boys buying hats from the old man

Suzhou

Suzhou

Suzhou

Suzhou

Old lady loving the rain!!

Suzhou

 After the river cruise, we got back on the buses and went for food. I am not even kidding when I tell you that we got lost AGAIN! We were starving and not excited about the bus drivers lack of direction. We passed restaurant after restaurant and we would've been happy to stop at any of them, but no, there is always a plan and it must be followed. They took us to a district with "lots of restaurants" or just one that looked good to us, and about 9 of us sat down for family style Chinese food. Our Favorite. 

We met back up after lunch to get back on the buses and luckily this time, we didn't get lost. We headed to Garden of the Master of the Nets 网师园. This place was amazing. We walked through lots of traditional looking buildings before coming to the garden. It was one of the most serene places I have ever been. We decided we would have loved to be there sometime when there weren't 20+ tour groups going through, but we enjoyed it anyways.

Intricate designs on an old building

Me at the Garden

Serenity & Beauty

Laura, Em and I

Turtle!! Turtle, turtle, turtle! 

The whole Suzhou group!

After the gardens we boarded the buses to head back to Shanghai. It is funny how we all thought the bus ride home was much shorter than the the bus ride there, it must have had something to do with the fact that the entire bus was asleep 20 minutes after boarding the bus and slept until we pulled up to campus. A good day, filled with bus rides, and serenity. What more could you ask for right. 

Less than one week until we leave for our 10 day vacation and I don't know if anyone could be more excited than we are for Chengdu, Xi'an, and Sanya. 

Get ready China! 

Because being sick is truly the pits...

I don't have any pictures to post, nor do I have any exciting outings to share, but I haven't hardly left my room in 3 days so I am running out of things to do to pass the time (there are only so many instant queue netflix films worth watching). This week started of quite stressful, in fact I don't know if I have ever worried about an exam or speech so much in my entire college career. Monday was spent studying if I wasn't in class or preparing the 4 minute speech I had to give in Chinese class on Tuesday for the oral part of my first exam. It was dreadful. I don't enjoy giving 4 minute speeches in English let alone Chinese. My speech had to be a love story and what better way to tell a love story than to tell one you have heard many times. I was fortunate to be able to tell the best love story I know, the love of my parents. Tuesday morning leading up to the exam I decided that the memorization was as good as it was going to get, so I spent the morning on Skype with the characters of my story. After the dreaded exam, which could've probably gone better and definitely much worse. I had a late night class moved from Wednesday for the mid-Autumn Festival. Mid-Autumn Festival is the beginning of the lunar calendar and a time to sit out with family, eat mooncakes and contemplate the moon... Since my family isn't here, I think mooncakes are awful, and I always like to contemplate the moon, I didn't think the holiday was that fantastic. Wednesday through Friday is off for all Chinese students for the holiday, but they have to make it up on Saturday and Sunday... lame. We on the other hand just had Wednesday off and had to make up our classes throughout the week, that way we could still have a weekend. Wednesday morning we decided it was probably time to make some decisions about our weeklong break. From October 1st-10th we have National Weeklong Study Break and we get to do whatever we want. The problem is the rest of the country also has this break... But we (Lucy, Emily, Lauren, and I) created quite the itinerary and regardless of the hordes of people, we will have fun. We plan to start the trip on Friday in Chengdu, Sichuan it is home to some of the spiciest food in the country and also to the biggest Panda reserve and breeding center. I kid you not, I am going to hold a baby panda bear in less than 10 days! After Chengdu we are going to head to Xi'an on Tuesday to meet up with Lucy's mother and grandmother who are currently doing a tour of China. We will get to see the terracota soldiers while we are there. After two days in Xi'an we are going to fly down to Sanya, China's Hawaii. It sounds cliche I know, but who can resist a beach when it is available. We decided to end our trip there in complete relaxation. Staying in Hostels along the way, the trip is going to be fantastic! After all the planning I was feeling exhausted and decided to take a nap, not realizing I wouldn't get out of bed again until Friday. Being sick in a foreign country makes you appreciate things back home, like mommies, and puppies, and comfy beds, and campbells chicken noodle soup. Spending 3 days in my rock hard bed has really started to wear on my joints! Tonight I managed to go to my one and only class for the day, but I was so exhausted after that short time that I postponed my tutoring session until Sunday, came back and took another nap. I woke up for dinner feeling like I could eat an entire cow (and here that it a possibility depending on what you order) so Lauren and I headed out for my first meal in days. It was fantastic. I am still feeling pretty great even though everyone else in the dorm left for a birthday party and I am stuck here with my netflix and a bottle of wine water. Luckily I have something to look forward to, tomorrow we are headed to Suzhou, which is supposed to be the Venice of the East. A water canal city full of beauty. I can't wait. Hopefully I will post again on Sunday with pictures from the trip.

Classes, Car Alarms, Children, and Cruises...

This week was the bittersweet beginning of classes. I was really looking forward to the learning and the classroom setting (no more than 20 in a class), but the homework is something I could do without. It didn't help that Monday morning there was monsoon rains and I am not joking when I say that living in the Northwest can not prepare you for this kind of rain. Sitting in my first class I was sure that the building was going to float down the forming river in the parking lot. Everyone got a little distracted when the lightning lit up the classroom like a spot light and then the thunder to follow was so loud it shook the windows and set off car alarms in the parking lot. I don't like the "thunder and lightning" (i say that with quotations because I don't believe that is really thunder and lightning after this week) back home, but after this week I have learned that I officially HATE thunder and lightning. I started Monday morning with the 3 hour Globalization in China and then headed to Chinese class. Each of my core classes are once a week for 3 hours, but Chinese is four days a week for 2 hours a day. There are 6 of us in the class and it is intense. We have a quiz every day that we need to learn 20-30 vocab words for, characters and all. After class I met with my tutor for the first time. Her name is Jojo and she is double majoring in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and Finance. She is only a junior and just finished her finance major last week... She is intense! I have the privilege to have to meet with her twice a week for an hour each time. Tuesday I was fortunate to have just Chinese class, which left some time to catch up on homework and studying. Wednesday morning was Transnationalism in China and Chinese. Thursday was more class, started the day with Chinese and then on to International Relations. IR is my biggest class and I think there are about 18 of us. The course load for my core courses is a lot of reading and then some papers and quizzes. But I am positive that my Chinese class is going to kick my butt! The best part of my week was going to 好又多 (Trust-mart/Walmart) and finding Skippy crunchy peanut butter! It is heaven in a jar and you don't realize how good it is until you go without it and find it again in China!!

Heaven in a jar

Friday was designated CIEE sponsored event day. We started off the morning with a field trip for our Globalization class. We went back to XinTianDi (the French Concession) and toured the museum of the First National Congress of the Communist Party. It was really interesting, but it was early and everyone was a little tired. We were happy to stay downtown and do some shopping when it was over though! Emily and I went to some boutiques looking for something to wear on the river cruise that was to follow that evening. Emily found an adorable dress to wear and I didn't find anything for the cruise but I did find a cute skirt. Together her dress and my skirt were less than 20 dollars! I love this city! After our shopping trip we headed back to campus to meet up with the program and tour a local migrant school. We have the opportunity to volunteer at this school and teach the first and fourth graders English. I was so excited to see so many of our program participants wanting to be involved. The one hour we spent with these children was one of my favorite hours in Shanghai. I watched a bunch of college boys get their hearts melted by the children in this school.

Emeca, Mike and Peter at the Migrant School

These kids are from poor families that are from the rural areas of China and their parents have come into the city looking for work. The kids are sponsored by the government and they don't have to pay for their education at all. Their books, tuition, and supplies are all given to them. The headmaster told us and showed us how enriching this school is for the lives of these children. We got to visit with the kids in simple english and chinese sentences and have them show us around their classrooms. It was a very overwhelming experience and we are all so anxious to go back. 

Migrant School

Migrant School

Adorable boys at the migrant school

Victor raced some of the boys on their amazing new track

After the migrant school tour we all went home to get ready for the Huangpu River Cruise. I don't remember who's brilliant idea it was to get all "gussied" up for this event, but I thank whoever decided on it. The cruise wasn't fancy, but we made it as fancy as we wanted. We had as much fun getting ready as we used to for high school dances! Before I tell the best part of the night I have to explain that going anywhere in this city by any mode of transportation other than the subway takes at least an hour if not more. We left the school at 5:30 for a 7:15 cruise... About 30 minutes into the commute Emily, Brandon, Lauren and I realized that we all had to go to the bathroom and we didn't think we were going to make it to the boat. Brandon told the bus driver who replied with "I can't get out of the traffic, sorry." Sorry wasn't going to cut it. As soon as we got off the freeway he pulled into a huge empty gravel parking lot and the four of us got out and just started running, fancy clothes and all. We booked it for the nearest building which thankfully was a hotel. Shouting in broken Chinese for a bathroom we were told the EIGHTH floor. It was the longest elevator ride of my life. And running for the bathroom I was laughing so hard I thought I wasn't going to make it. We went back to look for the buses (yes we had two buses full of CIEE students waiting for the four of us to go to the bathroom) and then got back on the road for the cruise. It was beautiful and so much fun! We took so many pictures and really enjoyed the gorgeous skyline. Shanghai at night looks like a New York and Las Vegas had a baby with gigantism. It is amazing. The night was spectacular and I am so thankful that we have already become such good friends that I can't imagine how it could have been any better beside making it last all night long!

Our "cruise ship"

A small part of the group

My better half- Emily

Lucy, Emily and I

My Roomie! Lauren

Drew, me, and Kevin in front of the Bund
Two of the funniest guys I have ever met,
can you tell??

Part of the UO crew- GO DUCKS! OOOOO!

The end of my first week in 上海 (Shanghai)!

The Acrobatics show was amazing. Absolutely fantastic! I should mention I was in the front row!! I almost giggled with enjoyment. After the show, Emily, Lucy, Beverly, Lauren and I went out for dinner at a Singapore restaurant and then decided to go out on the town for a girl’s night. We went to Muse and Sky. Muse is definitely an upscale place. We walked in and they never took their eyes off of us as if we were going to steal their cocktail glasses or something. The one plus was their bathroom! Here it is a hit or miss with bathrooms, whether they are nice or not. Muse had a towel lady in the bathroom that handed your paper towels when you finished washing your hands and they supplied TP and it was Western toilets (vs a squat)! After one drink and getting tired of being watched we decided to go downstairs to Sky. We had a blast. The drinks were expensive so we decided not to buy any, but the DJ was so thankful that we were on the dance floor he bought the five of us a drink. Dancing in China is different than in the states, but when we got out on the dance floor the Chinese girls decide it is okay and we come too. We met some amazing people and danced all night long. The girls included Kelly from California and Lisa from Shanghai and more. One nice thing about places like this in China is the guys don't come up and try to dance with you at all. 95% of the people on the dance floor are girls or couples. Thankfully this means a girls night can really be just a girls night! Girls night = success! We stayed until the club closed and then got a taxi back to campus. The taxi drivers only take us to the front gate and then leave us there. It is about a 10-minute walk through campus to the dorm and on the way back we pass the Mao statue in the middle of campus. We were told during orientation to be smart when going out because a CIEE student one year couldn’t get back to the dorm he was so drunk and the security guard found him the next morning sleeping at Mao’s feet… We thought it was such a funny story that we decided every night we go out we are going to take a picture of us pretending to sleep at Mao’s feet but never being drunk like the former student! First picture = priceless.

Acrobatics Show

Acrobatics Show

 

Acrobatics Show

Acrobatics Show

Acrobatics Show

Our new friends at Sky

      

Thursday was the first day that we didn’t have any orientation events planned until our Welcome Dinner in the evening. Needless to say almost everyone took advantage of the free time to catch up on sleep and get over the lingering jet lag. By evening we were all feeling great and ready to go to dinner. The entire group met at the Mao Statue at 6pm and went to a dinner and show. The dinner was a Sichuan restaurant and “face changing” show. The dinner was fantastic. The CIEE staff came along and John Tai, my academic director, sat at a table with Chelsea, Charae, Cameron, Isse, and more. It was great food and a fun, slightly strange show. Basically it was a man dressed in a traditional outfit dancing around wearing masks that changed frequently. After dinner everyone decided to go to SOHO. Probably 30 people from the program were there. We learned to play a betting dice game that the locals play in all the clubs and bars. It is also the same game that they play in Pirates of the Caribbean. Peter taught Lucy, Emily, Lauren, and I how to play. It was a great time for the program participants to bond and get to know each other outside of orientation "ice breakers".

            Friday I woke up at 8am to Skype with my parents and Christopher, but to my frustration the internet in our room didn’t work. I spent all morning trying to figure out how to get it to work with no success. We ran to the study center to check our class schedules, get our books, and find out our language placement. Thankfully Tang laoshi (teacher) came to her senses and placed me in the intermediate II class. I already have homework this weekend and a quiz on Monday during my first class! Yuck. I came home and decided to hook into the internet in the study room down the hall so that I could Skype with my family. I was very determined because it had been a few days since I had a chance to talk with anyone and it was Eli’s birthday. While I was very frustrated with the internet, I had a “awe” moment when it comes to technology because in one hour I was able to watch my brother open his birthday presents and blow out the candles on his cake, watch football on ESPN3, and send pictures to Walmart for mom to pick up today, all from the other side of the world! Fantastic! After being a part of Eli’s birthday celebration it was time to go to the World Expo. I was so excited, but coming out of it I was a little disappointed but at least I get to say I was there. It was raining for the first half an hour that we were there and the pavilion lines were 3+ hours long. Needless to say we didn’t go in any of the individual pavilions. We did make it into some of the continent pavilions with some of the smaller country displays inside. The architecture of the pavilions was amazing enough to keep us occupied for a few hours (the pictures are of some of my favorite pavilions). We decided to look into getting VIP passes and try to go back another day. From the Expo we were on our own to get back to campus or do whatever we wanted. Lauren, Lucy, Emily and I decided to have a dinner and movie date. It was very very muggy so we decided to check out the movies and sit in an air-conditioned theater for a few hours. We saw Inception at a theater back in XinTianDi (we decided we really like it there). Lauren and I both saw the movie in the states, but decided that we should see it again to see if we missed anything the first time around. We did. It was as amazing the second time, as it was the first if not better. Plus since I had already watched it once I was able to try to read the Chinese subtitles instead of try to figure out what the heck was going on with the plot. After the movie we found another great little restaurant down a side street from XinTianDi. None of us can afford to actually eat dinner in the French Concession, but we like to walk around it and pretend we can. After dinner we came back to the dorms for an early bedtime. 

Charae, Lucy, Emily, Me, and Lauren at the Expo

Russia Pavilion

Algeria Pavilion

Romania Pavilion for Raluca

Australia for Ellie and Emily

Ireland for Chris (although it had very boring architecture, basically it looked like a semi-truck on a grass hill)

Thailand Pavilion

UK Pavilion (by far the best at the Expo)

Downtown Shanghai

The buildings may rival the lights in Vegas...

The trees lining the roads are always lit up like Christmas!

            Today, Saturday, was the Amazing Race Shanghai. Basically we had teams of 4-5 people and we were given a clue at the lobby of the dorm and we had to use public transportation, but no taxis, to find the destination. We had to take a picture at each destination and then show it to a CIEE staff member at a nearby location. Each staff member would give us another clue. After about 3.5 hours and 6 destinations we made it to the end. It was exhausting but at least we can say we finished and we know how to get around Shanghai. It rained off and on throughout the competition but at one point there was what I can only describe as a monsoon. Lauren, Emily, Lucy, Kyle and I were the 6^th group to finish and we are just hoping there were at least 7 teams! We made our way back to campus and had some down time/study time before we go out for dinner tonight and to a Karaoke Bar!!