...we're heading back to the U.S. I can't believe how fast this summer has gone! This whole experience has definitely been the most incredible summer of my life! At times I wanted to give up, a lot of times I wanted to come home, but honestly I wouldn't go back and change anything. OK except maybe the rash I had for two weeks. But aside from that, I loved this whole program and I'm actually sad to be leaving it.
I will miss all of my friends. We've bonded so much: through our similarities and common passions, and also through all we've experienced together this summer. We have so many funny and fun memories I know I will never forget. We plan to have reunions to see each other, and I really hope we do because I really love these girls. Without them this summer would have been dull and I'm thankful for the way the Lord provided such good friendships for me.
I will miss speaking and learning Chinese all of the time. We did take a lot of breaks in English, but even with those breaks I was speaking Chinese for a majority of the time. I love Chinese! I will really miss learning it every day and having people around me to explain new words and grammar patterns and Chinese idioms. I need to find some Chinese friends in Lynchburg ASAP to practice with regularly.
I will miss being in a stimulating learning environment. I really love learning, and besides learning Chinese all the time, I've learned a lot from all of the people I've spent this summer with. Everyone is so smart! Even though I am SO glad to be done with college (yay!), I will miss academia because learning is just so fun!
I will miss living in a city. Suzhou is crowded and polluted but I like the convenience of cabs and buses and walking most everywhere we need to go. Lynchburg is so small and I'm kind of nervous about living there for the next four months with not really any kind of established life there. I'm sure it will be fine, I just need to get used to not being super busy in life.
I will miss China. Sometimes China and I don't get along, and sometimes a lot of things about China bother me, but I really do love China. Mainly I love the people. I will miss my teachers and my roommate and our assistant directors. They are all so fun to talk to and we've become good friends whom I love interacting with.
Time to finish getting my stuff together and lug it down four flights of steps. I will be traveling for the next 25 hours! That is not very appealing but I am so excited to be coming home!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Tuesday
Oh I do not like waking up for 8:10 class. Thank God for reason #21 I love China: iced coffee juice boxes for 50 cents! Today in our social issues class we talked about unemployment of college graduates in China. Not one of our more interesting topics, but that class is my favorite because it's discussion based. I also think it's really helped my Chinese the most because I've had to learn how to articulate my opinion on all these different topics, and then explain why I disagree or agree with other people's opinions. The vocab has been really practical, and our weekly tests are essays so it's been a good balance of spoken and written Chinese. After that class speaking class was again on house reform. Soo boring. I get the basic gist that there's three types of housing in China: market housing that people can buy if they have the money, and then the government housing that'spretty cheap and is available to those in a certain income bracket, and then other government housing that's really small and outside the city that is for really, really poor people. Beyond that I was a little lost. Oh and she gave us a political cartoon about housing prices in China. Political cartoons sometimes confuse me in English; I didn't even know they had them in Chinese! Reading & writing class was a little better today because we just talkeda bout how American companies in China are doing, how they change their products, how they are doing post-economic crisis in the U.S., etc.
I wasn't feeling that well during class and I thought about skipping my one-on-one class but then I decided I could handle 50 more minutes. The laundry people came today so I dropped off my lunadry, and on the way back to my room my teacher called, saying she was busy and couldn't meet at our regular time. I was thinking great I wanted to cancel anyway, but then she wanted me to come up with another time to meet and let her know. Yeah right I did not want to do that. So I came back to my room and ate the rest of my sandwich from last night, and then laid on my bed and watched a movie. It was so nice to do nothing and relax (especially since it was raining) since I usually study all afternoon. This week we don't have weekly tests so there's not as much pressure to get studying done. At 2 I went to meet my teacher and tell her there was no time for me to meet and haev class, since I was leaving at 2:30 to go to Starbucks (to study and use the internet, since ours was still broken). But she didn't even like listen to what I said and said I could join her and Faith for their one-on-one time. I don't know why but the whole thing made me so mad. I think because she disregarded what I told her, she was the one that canceled on me so that's her deal, and how weird is it to just join someone else's one-on-one time? That's the whole point of the class. Anyway I joined their session for just 30 minutes because I was still going to Starbucks and didn't want to be in that class any longer.
When I got back to our room our internet was fixed but Melissa and I just wanted to get out of the dorm so we got a cab and went anyway. Going out in the rain is probably one of my least favorite things to do, but for a frappuccino it's worth it. We got our drinks and then actually walked across the street to Coldstone because their internet is free. We took turns using my computer and got a lot of studying done. We were kind of waiting for the rain to slow down because we left, because it was lightning and I refuse to use an umbrella when it's lightning. Coldstone just smelled so good we really wanted ice cream. But neither of us had very much money with us, because at Starbucks we both ended up buying coffee mugs. So we were too poor to buy ice cream, so we just bought a waffle cone for 3 元 and split it. Then I told the guy working we were poor students so could we just please have a sampler? I love cake batter ice cream.
We got a cab to this side street near campus where we planned on picking up dinner. We love sweet and sour pork so we ordered two plates of that and then three things of rice. The total was 39 元 so Melissa and I get out our wallets and discover between the two of us we only have 29 元. Yikes. The rice was only 1 元 each so that wouldn't have made a different, and we definitely wanted 2 orders of pork so we didn't know what to do. All the Chinese people around us were getting a kick out of the two white girls who didn't have enough money to buy dinner. So we're both scrounging through our purses and backpacks, and finally come up with enough random change to make 33 元. Melissa was like "if only we had gotten tall frappuccinos instead of grande! We would've had enough money!" Oh well. I love me some Starbucks. So we finally just asked if we could come back tomorrow and bring 6 元. Thankfully they said yes so we waited for our food. But while we were waiting we saw our friend Chen Long and he graciously lent us money so we could pay the whole bill. Then we went back to the dorm, ate dinner, and I went to my room to finish studying for my quizzes. Then I called my mom and talked to her for a while before I went to Bible study.
I invited O Ye to Bible study and she came with me! There were six of us altogether. We sang a few worship songs in Chinese and then started discussing 1 Peter 4: 7-11. There were a lot of new words for us so we had a vocab list of Biblical terms so that was helpful. Halfway through Bible study Luke was in the hallway calling me name so I went out to talk about our plan for going to visit the garden tomorrow. After we worked everything out I went back to Bible study but I just felt distracted. Sometimes Bible study is really a challenge because we all have such different backgrounds and different expectations for what a Bible study should look like. And without much structure it sometimes turns into random tangets. Besides the fact that it's hard trying to discuss a passage of Scripture in Chinese! I am so thankful I have had Christian fellowship this summer, but it has been difficult at times, just like all relationships. I can't wait to go to church at home. After Bible study I showered and went to bed early again. Well, midnight to me is early anyway. It's so nice being able to catch up on sleep!
I wasn't feeling that well during class and I thought about skipping my one-on-one class but then I decided I could handle 50 more minutes. The laundry people came today so I dropped off my lunadry, and on the way back to my room my teacher called, saying she was busy and couldn't meet at our regular time. I was thinking great I wanted to cancel anyway, but then she wanted me to come up with another time to meet and let her know. Yeah right I did not want to do that. So I came back to my room and ate the rest of my sandwich from last night, and then laid on my bed and watched a movie. It was so nice to do nothing and relax (especially since it was raining) since I usually study all afternoon. This week we don't have weekly tests so there's not as much pressure to get studying done. At 2 I went to meet my teacher and tell her there was no time for me to meet and haev class, since I was leaving at 2:30 to go to Starbucks (to study and use the internet, since ours was still broken). But she didn't even like listen to what I said and said I could join her and Faith for their one-on-one time. I don't know why but the whole thing made me so mad. I think because she disregarded what I told her, she was the one that canceled on me so that's her deal, and how weird is it to just join someone else's one-on-one time? That's the whole point of the class. Anyway I joined their session for just 30 minutes because I was still going to Starbucks and didn't want to be in that class any longer.
When I got back to our room our internet was fixed but Melissa and I just wanted to get out of the dorm so we got a cab and went anyway. Going out in the rain is probably one of my least favorite things to do, but for a frappuccino it's worth it. We got our drinks and then actually walked across the street to Coldstone because their internet is free. We took turns using my computer and got a lot of studying done. We were kind of waiting for the rain to slow down because we left, because it was lightning and I refuse to use an umbrella when it's lightning. Coldstone just smelled so good we really wanted ice cream. But neither of us had very much money with us, because at Starbucks we both ended up buying coffee mugs. So we were too poor to buy ice cream, so we just bought a waffle cone for 3 元 and split it. Then I told the guy working we were poor students so could we just please have a sampler? I love cake batter ice cream.
We got a cab to this side street near campus where we planned on picking up dinner. We love sweet and sour pork so we ordered two plates of that and then three things of rice. The total was 39 元 so Melissa and I get out our wallets and discover between the two of us we only have 29 元. Yikes. The rice was only 1 元 each so that wouldn't have made a different, and we definitely wanted 2 orders of pork so we didn't know what to do. All the Chinese people around us were getting a kick out of the two white girls who didn't have enough money to buy dinner. So we're both scrounging through our purses and backpacks, and finally come up with enough random change to make 33 元. Melissa was like "if only we had gotten tall frappuccinos instead of grande! We would've had enough money!" Oh well. I love me some Starbucks. So we finally just asked if we could come back tomorrow and bring 6 元. Thankfully they said yes so we waited for our food. But while we were waiting we saw our friend Chen Long and he graciously lent us money so we could pay the whole bill. Then we went back to the dorm, ate dinner, and I went to my room to finish studying for my quizzes. Then I called my mom and talked to her for a while before I went to Bible study.
I invited O Ye to Bible study and she came with me! There were six of us altogether. We sang a few worship songs in Chinese and then started discussing 1 Peter 4: 7-11. There were a lot of new words for us so we had a vocab list of Biblical terms so that was helpful. Halfway through Bible study Luke was in the hallway calling me name so I went out to talk about our plan for going to visit the garden tomorrow. After we worked everything out I went back to Bible study but I just felt distracted. Sometimes Bible study is really a challenge because we all have such different backgrounds and different expectations for what a Bible study should look like. And without much structure it sometimes turns into random tangets. Besides the fact that it's hard trying to discuss a passage of Scripture in Chinese! I am so thankful I have had Christian fellowship this summer, but it has been difficult at times, just like all relationships. I can't wait to go to church at home. After Bible study I showered and went to bed early again. Well, midnight to me is early anyway. It's so nice being able to catch up on sleep!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Monday, Monday
This is my last full week in Suzhou (ah!) so I thought I would write a post about what I do each day this week so I can remember the details of my life here. So it's already Thursday and I'm just posting what I wrote about Monday, but hopefully I'll get the other ones up soon. Here goes:
I stayed up really late last night watching the Bachelorette season finale (thank God for whoever illegally uploads the episodes to the internet!), so I slept until 9 this morning. I love Mondays and Wednesdays when class doesn't start until 10. I caught up on some email and then started going over my one-on-one lesson for today. Monday is usually the day the laundry people open shop for our program, so before class I lugged all of my laundry down there, but they were closed. Then I had to carry it all back up the four flights of steps, then go back down to go to class. I guess I shouldn't complain though, since climbing steps has been the extent of my exercise for the summer. I was a little late for class but reading & writing class is usually boring so I didn't mind. And today didn't disappoint...it was pretty boring. I was so tired from the weeknd I don't think I said anything all of class, which is unusual. Our chapter this week is on China's economy. ok so macro was my worst class in college, so I'm obviously not excited about trying to learn economic terms in Chinese. She went on and on the entireclass about foreign investment in China and all these other things I don't even think I can explain in English very well. Finally that class ended and speaking class started. We got our teacher to talk to us about our weekend at the beach for like 15 minutes so that was a good tangent. Then this chapter was on housing reform in China. Whoa even more boring and complicated than China's economy. It's too bad I picked a language that's Communist so all of these types of topics are super confusing to learn about.
After we listened to her explain Deng Xiao Ping's hosuing plans and I got distracted thinking about how his wife died last week at age 93, class finally ended and we walked to the restaurant across from the main campus gate for our Chinese table program. Every Monday the program pays for us to eat lunch at this restaurant with all of our teachers so that we can practice our Chinese with them outside of the class. And surprise surprise, the food was the same as every other Monday this whole summer. Monday's lunch for me = lots of eggplant and rice. Have I ever even eaten eggplant in America? I don't think I have. After lunch we bought ice cream cones and then I went to my room and discovered our dorm's internet was broken. Not okay. I was upset because internet is the only way I can communicate with anyone and without I really feel like I'm on the other side of the world. The internet truly brings our world closer together.
At 1:00 I reluctantly walked to one-on-one...not my favorite class. For the first 25 minutes we talked about our trip to the beach and just chit chatted. Talking about random things is the only redeeming quality of one-on-one, because the textbook is lame. The lesson this week is on "Chinese flavor" aka Chinese souvenirs that are either 1) ugly or 2) useless. But that's just my opinion. I guess they might be exciting to some people. Once that class was over I went back to my room and got a lot of studying down for the three quizzes I have tomorrow. Not having internet makes me more productive.
At 3:20 Melissa and I walked to the other side of campus for our taichi class. This is our last day of extra curricular class!! Last week we finished learning the routine he was teaching us, so all day today we kept re
peating the entire thing to practice since we have to perform in front of everyone next week at our graduation ceremony. It was so hot out and no wind, so thankfully our teacher gave us lots of breaks. I just get so hot and sweaty while we're doing taichi, which is weird since taichi is probably the slowest thing I've done in my entire life. I really do like our teacher though; he's laid back, amazing at taichi and kongfu, and really enjoys talking to us. Finally at 5:00 we finished practicing and Melissa, Rachael, and I met up with Jocelyne, Jenni, and Meg to go buy 病沙 [frozen fruit drinks that are perfect for hot Suzhou weather...and they only cost $1]. This is the highlight of Mondays for us, especially since we're so hot from taichi. Passion fruit is my favorite. Then we walked to Yang Yang [one of our favorite restaurants here, coincidentally also recommended by Lonely Planet] and ordered a ton of dumplings, broccoli, and sweet & sour pork. It was so good and I ate a lot, as usual. After dinner we went and bought some DVDs and I went to this Indian store and bought some pretty jewelry.
Then I walked back to my room and talked to O Ye [my roommate's nickname] and studied some more for my quizzes. Melissa had a really bad day today because she spilled water on her computer and it broke. So she came into my room around 8:45 saying she needed to get out and do something. I agreed because sometimes I feel so cabin feverish in my room because it's either hot or raining so that rules out going outside, and I always have homework and studying to do. I am a prisoner of my room. Actually that's a bit dramatic, I do enjoy being in my room. But anyway we decided to go to the Drunken Clam to study for our quizzes. But the gate we needed to go out closes at 9 so we had to halfway run across campus to make it out in time. The menu looked really good so we ordered sandwiches and had a second dinner. Whoops. But we saved half our meal for lunch tomorrow. We had enough of studying after a while, so we walked all the way back to campus the long way and on the way I convinced Melissa to buy ice creams with me. 越来越胖 [as time goes on I get fatter]! But really Melissa and I talked about it and this summer has been so hard, so we're okay with maybe gaining a little weight as a result of taking breaks to eat Western food. Or ice creams.
After we got back I showered and was feeling tired so I actually went to bed at 12. The past four weeks I've gone to bed at 2 or later every night. Not a good idea. I'm so exhausted. From Chinese and this summer and this experience and from the past three years of trying to work 15 hours a week and take 18 credits at the same time. Whoa I need a break. And it's coming soon! Only one more Monday in China!
I stayed up really late last night watching the Bachelorette season finale (thank God for whoever illegally uploads the episodes to the internet!), so I slept until 9 this morning. I love Mondays and Wednesdays when class doesn't start until 10. I caught up on some email and then started going over my one-on-one lesson for today. Monday is usually the day the laundry people open shop for our program, so before class I lugged all of my laundry down there, but they were closed. Then I had to carry it all back up the four flights of steps, then go back down to go to class. I guess I shouldn't complain though, since climbing steps has been the extent of my exercise for the summer. I was a little late for class but reading & writing class is usually boring so I didn't mind. And today didn't disappoint...it was pretty boring. I was so tired from the weeknd I don't think I said anything all of class, which is unusual. Our chapter this week is on China's economy. ok so macro was my worst class in college, so I'm obviously not excited about trying to learn economic terms in Chinese. She went on and on the entireclass about foreign investment in China and all these other things I don't even think I can explain in English very well. Finally that class ended and speaking class started. We got our teacher to talk to us about our weekend at the beach for like 15 minutes so that was a good tangent. Then this chapter was on housing reform in China. Whoa even more boring and complicated than China's economy. It's too bad I picked a language that's Communist so all of these types of topics are super confusing to learn about.
After we listened to her explain Deng Xiao Ping's hosuing plans and I got distracted thinking about how his wife died last week at age 93, class finally ended and we walked to the restaurant across from the main campus gate for our Chinese table program. Every Monday the program pays for us to eat lunch at this restaurant with all of our teachers so that we can practice our Chinese with them outside of the class. And surprise surprise, the food was the same as every other Monday this whole summer. Monday's lunch for me = lots of eggplant and rice. Have I ever even eaten eggplant in America? I don't think I have. After lunch we bought ice cream cones and then I went to my room and discovered our dorm's internet was broken. Not okay. I was upset because internet is the only way I can communicate with anyone and without I really feel like I'm on the other side of the world. The internet truly brings our world closer together.
At 1:00 I reluctantly walked to one-on-one...not my favorite class. For the first 25 minutes we talked about our trip to the beach and just chit chatted. Talking about random things is the only redeeming quality of one-on-one, because the textbook is lame. The lesson this week is on "Chinese flavor" aka Chinese souvenirs that are either 1) ugly or 2) useless. But that's just my opinion. I guess they might be exciting to some people. Once that class was over I went back to my room and got a lot of studying down for the three quizzes I have tomorrow. Not having internet makes me more productive.
At 3:20 Melissa and I walked to the other side of campus for our taichi class. This is our last day of extra curricular class!! Last week we finished learning the routine he was teaching us, so all day today we kept re
peating the entire thing to practice since we have to perform in front of everyone next week at our graduation ceremony. It was so hot out and no wind, so thankfully our teacher gave us lots of breaks. I just get so hot and sweaty while we're doing taichi, which is weird since taichi is probably the slowest thing I've done in my entire life. I really do like our teacher though; he's laid back, amazing at taichi and kongfu, and really enjoys talking to us. Finally at 5:00 we finished practicing and Melissa, Rachael, and I met up with Jocelyne, Jenni, and Meg to go buy 病沙 [frozen fruit drinks that are perfect for hot Suzhou weather...and they only cost $1]. This is the highlight of Mondays for us, especially since we're so hot from taichi. Passion fruit is my favorite. Then we walked to Yang Yang [one of our favorite restaurants here, coincidentally also recommended by Lonely Planet] and ordered a ton of dumplings, broccoli, and sweet & sour pork. It was so good and I ate a lot, as usual. After dinner we went and bought some DVDs and I went to this Indian store and bought some pretty jewelry.Then I walked back to my room and talked to O Ye [my roommate's nickname] and studied some more for my quizzes. Melissa had a really bad day today because she spilled water on her computer and it broke. So she came into my room around 8:45 saying she needed to get out and do something. I agreed because sometimes I feel so cabin feverish in my room because it's either hot or raining so that rules out going outside, and I always have homework and studying to do. I am a prisoner of my room. Actually that's a bit dramatic, I do enjoy being in my room. But anyway we decided to go to the Drunken Clam to study for our quizzes. But the gate we needed to go out closes at 9 so we had to halfway run across campus to make it out in time. The menu looked really good so we ordered sandwiches and had a second dinner. Whoops. But we saved half our meal for lunch tomorrow. We had enough of studying after a while, so we walked all the way back to campus the long way and on the way I convinced Melissa to buy ice creams with me. 越来越胖 [as time goes on I get fatter]! But really Melissa and I talked about it and this summer has been so hard, so we're okay with maybe gaining a little weight as a result of taking breaks to eat Western food. Or ice creams.
After we got back I showered and was feeling tired so I actually went to bed at 12. The past four weeks I've gone to bed at 2 or later every night. Not a good idea. I'm so exhausted. From Chinese and this summer and this experience and from the past three years of trying to work 15 hours a week and take 18 credits at the same time. Whoa I need a break. And it's coming soon! Only one more Monday in China!
Monday, August 3, 2009
on beaching in China
This past weekend was our group trip to the Zhoushan islands. It's a bunch of islands together but the one we went to was the most popular, also called the "Jamaica" of China. I've never been to Jamaica, but I feel like it's probably a lot nicer than Zhoushan. ok so Friday they canceled two of our classes and had us take our tests on Thursday so that we could leave Friday morning. We left around 10:30 and drove for about four hours. This was the one trip that all of our Chinese roommates were allowed to go on, and they had planned a bunch of games for us to play along the way. Well the games were not a hit with the American students, because it involved a plastic blowup lamb being passed around and if it landed on you when the music stopped then you had to do something embarra
ssing like sing a song or make scary faces. Most of us wanted to just sleep since we had just finished a long week of classes. Once the games ended, the ride was pretty uneventful. We did go over the longest bridge in the world - 35 kilometers - that connects the Shanghai area to Zhe Jiang province, so that was cool. After we drove four hours we got to Ningbo, where we got on a ferry boat to take us to the cluster of islands. The ferry was nasty and crowded and the water was super dirty and polluted. We rode the boat for like an hour then drove for another hour or two until we got to our hotel. All of our rooms overlooked the ocean which was really nice. Here's a view of our hotel from the beach.
They gave us an hour before we got back on the bus to go to a fishing town for dinner. Fishing village in my mind is a rural village with fishing shacks on the side of the ocean, lots of tiny stands with seafood and poor kids running around. This place was basically a small city. The friends I was with don't really like seafood, and on the way to the town our tour guide had told us to be careful with the seafood because we might get laduzi (diarrhea). Oh gee, can't wait. So we hung back from the rest of the group and quick darted into Winner Pizza when they weren't looking. A lot of times people give us a hard time if we decide to eat Western, so we were trying to avoid the judgment this time. Winner Pizza ended up being a great choice - good pizza and excellent waffle fries. After we ate we met up with another friend walked around for a bit. We wandered into a mostly empty bar and with an entirely empty stage, so we took that as an invitation to get on the stage and dance. The people in the bar loved it and we convinced some of them to join in with us. After 20 minutes we had to meet up with the rest of our group so we headed out. Once we got back to the hotel we hung out on the patio playing Uno until late.
Saturday morning I woke up to this view out my window. I love how there's the sand and the water and then these beautiful mountains. It was definitely a different kind of beach than I've ever been to. The group met at 9:30 to head to the beach. We got out of the bus and it started raining: awesome. First we had to go t
o this little building and get our VIP beach passes made. They to take a picture of each of us before they could issue our passes. It was quite a hassle. Finally we made it through the gate, walked the 10 minutes past the vendors, and got onto the beach. On the way we bought innertubes for $1.50 which ended up being the best purchase of the day. Since it was raining, we obviously weren't going to tan, and the sand was wet, we just went far out in the ocean with our tubes and floated and talked. There are basically no waves so we could go out further than all the Chinese people dare to go. (Most Chinese people can't swim). After an hour or so of floating Melissa and I went and got our one Chinese friend who wanted me to teach him to swim. We spent the next 30 minutes trying to teach him how to tread water, do the doggie paddle, and float. He was really nervous and tense so it was kind of difficult, but eventually he caught on. It's really hard trying to teach someone to swim in Chinese! But we had a good time. Then we headed back to the hotel to eat lunch. The food was pretty good I thought- rice, eggplant, kongpao chicken, french fries, shrimp, green vegetables, etc. They actually brought us two of every dish because the tour guide calculated the number of people incorrectly. After lunch we decided we wanted to head back to the beach because it looked like the sun might come out.
We walked back down and as we were walking the sun did come out! We were so excited we were practically jumping up and down. We ended up having almost an hour of good sunshine before it got really cloudy again. But in that hour we laid out and I ended up getting burned. Laying out in China is not as relax
ing as the U.S. though. Chinese people don't really give you space and people kept kicking their soccer balls over to our heads and hitting us. Some people would just walk up, stare, and take pictures/videos. The beach was so incredibly crowded and loud, people were smoking and throwing their cigarette butts and trash in the water. Some kids don't wear bathing suits and some adults just swim in their clothes. Chinese men wear speedos, and the whole experience is just not as enjoyable as relaxing on the beach at home. I was getting really fed up with the crowd and noise and people trying to sell me watermelon so we got our floats and went back into the water. I think it was probably because the tide was coming in, but the nice clean water from the morning was gone and was filled with brown algae plant things. And it wasn't like a chunk here or there, it was a you get out of the water and look like a furry bear covered in brown crap over your entire body. Pretty disgusting, but being in that for an hour was better than the crowd on the sand. We got out of the water around 4 and had our fill of the beach so we headed back to the hotel. We showered and relaxed for a couple of hours before we met with the group to go barbeque.
We got to the gate of the beach and stood there for an hour waiting to go in to have our cookout. Then they said there was some sort of problem, so we got on the bus and were going to try another place on the island to cookout. In the mean time it started lightning so the weather was looking less than desirable for a cookout. Finally they decided to can the cookout idea, move it to Sunday's lunch, and have dinner in the hotel. All of this took an hour and 40 minutes, so it was almost 8:00 by the time dinner was going to be served. My friends and I were not too excited about having the hotel food, since it would more than likely be the same as lunch. So we got a hotel service car to drive us 20 minutes to the town's McDonalds, wait for us while we got take out, and drive us back. All of us are pretty ready to come back to the States and sometimes we just can't handle another Chinese meal. We brought our food back to the hotel and then hung out in our rooms all night talking. It was really fun.
Sunday morning we had the option of riding a boat or sleeping in. Hmm that's a t
ough choice...NOT. We've been on like 13 boat rides this summer and I've had my fill. So I slept in and it felt great. Then we met to go have our cookout. I was a little skeptical on how it would be, but it ended up being a lot of fun. We had little firepits and cement tables and stools for all of us, and then we just grabbed the food we wanted to cook and threw it on. We had potatoes, corn on the cob, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken legs (those were mainly for the Chinese), onions, green peppers, and s'mores!! Everything was SOO good and we all ate a ton. It was kind of funny that everything was kind of all cooking at the same time, as you can see us roasting our marshmallows over all the other food. We had a really good time, and I'm actually glad we ended up doing it in the daytime because we could see the ocean too.
After we finished eating we were dying of heat from both the humidity and also all of the smoke and heat from the fire, so we w
alked back to the ocean to take some pictures. We ended up laughing so much and getting some really great pictures - it was a great end to our time at the beach. We then headed back to the hotel, gathered our stuff, and got on the bus. We boarded the buses at 1, didn't leave until 1:30. Less than an hour later we were sitting in traffic. All of the cars and buses were also waiting to get on the ferry to take us back to the mainland. We sat in traffic for over TWO HOURS. Then, when we got to the place to board the ferry, we sat in the parking lot for over 30 minutes waiting to get on the boat. Needless to say, all of us were not happy. It was raining and we just wanted to go home. While we were in traffic I really had to go to the bathroom but they said there was nowhere to go. A little later they pointed to a tiny blue building on the side of the road and said I could use that. So about six of us girls climb out of the bus, make our way through the traffic, and go to the bathroom. Chinese bathrooms are sick, let alone ones on the side of the road, so I opted to just pee in the grass. Melissa and I took turns holding the umbrella up to block the view, but Melissa ended up touching the blue building and stained her hand with blue paint. Then we look up and see our buses have actually moved in the traffic and are now quite far away. So all of us are dying laughing, in the rain with no umbrellas, a blue hand, and now running on the side of the road trying to catch up with our buses. We finally found then, jumped the guard rail, and pushed through traffic to get on. It was good comic relief. Finally we got to the boat, got on, played some cards while we rode to the mainland, and got back on the road. The mood in the bus was definitely sour. This was one of the tightest buses I've ever been in. I'm not that tall, but sitting up straight my knees were hitting the seat in front of me. All of us were super uncomfortable because the seats were made for Chinese people. We stopped later on and picked up KFC, which the program paid for, which we were very grateful for. We kept driving and driving, stopping every now and then to go to the bathroom in a Chinese rest stop. I don't know about the rest of the bus, but my friends and I were literally going crazy. We finally got back to our dorm at 10:30. A trip that should've taken 5ish hours took 9. It was out of control.
Even though the trip ended up kind of a bad note with the long, uncomfortable bus ride, it was a fun weekend. The weather was kind of a bummer, but that can't be helped. The beach was super crowded and not as relaxing as I hoped, but I still got some sun, played in the Pacific, and had a lot of fun with my friends. It was weird knowing that was our last trip of this program. We're coming home in 11 days!
ssing like sing a song or make scary faces. Most of us wanted to just sleep since we had just finished a long week of classes. Once the games ended, the ride was pretty uneventful. We did go over the longest bridge in the world - 35 kilometers - that connects the Shanghai area to Zhe Jiang province, so that was cool. After we drove four hours we got to Ningbo, where we got on a ferry boat to take us to the cluster of islands. The ferry was nasty and crowded and the water was super dirty and polluted. We rode the boat for like an hour then drove for another hour or two until we got to our hotel. All of our rooms overlooked the ocean which was really nice. Here's a view of our hotel from the beach.They gave us an hour before we got back on the bus to go to a fishing town for dinner. Fishing village in my mind is a rural village with fishing shacks on the side of the ocean, lots of tiny stands with seafood and poor kids running around. This place was basically a small city. The friends I was with don't really like seafood, and on the way to the town our tour guide had told us to be careful with the seafood because we might get laduzi (diarrhea). Oh gee, can't wait. So we hung back from the rest of the group and quick darted into Winner Pizza when they weren't looking. A lot of times people give us a hard time if we decide to eat Western, so we were trying to avoid the judgment this time. Winner Pizza ended up being a great choice - good pizza and excellent waffle fries. After we ate we met up with another friend walked around for a bit. We wandered into a mostly empty bar and with an entirely empty stage, so we took that as an invitation to get on the stage and dance. The people in the bar loved it and we convinced some of them to join in with us. After 20 minutes we had to meet up with the rest of our group so we headed out. Once we got back to the hotel we hung out on the patio playing Uno until late.
Saturday morning I woke up to this view out my window. I love how there's the sand and the water and then these beautiful mountains. It was definitely a different kind of beach than I've ever been to. The group met at 9:30 to head to the beach. We got out of the bus and it started raining: awesome. First we had to go t
o this little building and get our VIP beach passes made. They to take a picture of each of us before they could issue our passes. It was quite a hassle. Finally we made it through the gate, walked the 10 minutes past the vendors, and got onto the beach. On the way we bought innertubes for $1.50 which ended up being the best purchase of the day. Since it was raining, we obviously weren't going to tan, and the sand was wet, we just went far out in the ocean with our tubes and floated and talked. There are basically no waves so we could go out further than all the Chinese people dare to go. (Most Chinese people can't swim). After an hour or so of floating Melissa and I went and got our one Chinese friend who wanted me to teach him to swim. We spent the next 30 minutes trying to teach him how to tread water, do the doggie paddle, and float. He was really nervous and tense so it was kind of difficult, but eventually he caught on. It's really hard trying to teach someone to swim in Chinese! But we had a good time. Then we headed back to the hotel to eat lunch. The food was pretty good I thought- rice, eggplant, kongpao chicken, french fries, shrimp, green vegetables, etc. They actually brought us two of every dish because the tour guide calculated the number of people incorrectly. After lunch we decided we wanted to head back to the beach because it looked like the sun might come out.We walked back down and as we were walking the sun did come out! We were so excited we were practically jumping up and down. We ended up having almost an hour of good sunshine before it got really cloudy again. But in that hour we laid out and I ended up getting burned. Laying out in China is not as relax
ing as the U.S. though. Chinese people don't really give you space and people kept kicking their soccer balls over to our heads and hitting us. Some people would just walk up, stare, and take pictures/videos. The beach was so incredibly crowded and loud, people were smoking and throwing their cigarette butts and trash in the water. Some kids don't wear bathing suits and some adults just swim in their clothes. Chinese men wear speedos, and the whole experience is just not as enjoyable as relaxing on the beach at home. I was getting really fed up with the crowd and noise and people trying to sell me watermelon so we got our floats and went back into the water. I think it was probably because the tide was coming in, but the nice clean water from the morning was gone and was filled with brown algae plant things. And it wasn't like a chunk here or there, it was a you get out of the water and look like a furry bear covered in brown crap over your entire body. Pretty disgusting, but being in that for an hour was better than the crowd on the sand. We got out of the water around 4 and had our fill of the beach so we headed back to the hotel. We showered and relaxed for a couple of hours before we met with the group to go barbeque.We got to the gate of the beach and stood there for an hour waiting to go in to have our cookout. Then they said there was some sort of problem, so we got on the bus and were going to try another place on the island to cookout. In the mean time it started lightning so the weather was looking less than desirable for a cookout. Finally they decided to can the cookout idea, move it to Sunday's lunch, and have dinner in the hotel. All of this took an hour and 40 minutes, so it was almost 8:00 by the time dinner was going to be served. My friends and I were not too excited about having the hotel food, since it would more than likely be the same as lunch. So we got a hotel service car to drive us 20 minutes to the town's McDonalds, wait for us while we got take out, and drive us back. All of us are pretty ready to come back to the States and sometimes we just can't handle another Chinese meal. We brought our food back to the hotel and then hung out in our rooms all night talking. It was really fun.
Sunday morning we had the option of riding a boat or sleeping in. Hmm that's a t
ough choice...NOT. We've been on like 13 boat rides this summer and I've had my fill. So I slept in and it felt great. Then we met to go have our cookout. I was a little skeptical on how it would be, but it ended up being a lot of fun. We had little firepits and cement tables and stools for all of us, and then we just grabbed the food we wanted to cook and threw it on. We had potatoes, corn on the cob, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken legs (those were mainly for the Chinese), onions, green peppers, and s'mores!! Everything was SOO good and we all ate a ton. It was kind of funny that everything was kind of all cooking at the same time, as you can see us roasting our marshmallows over all the other food. We had a really good time, and I'm actually glad we ended up doing it in the daytime because we could see the ocean too.After we finished eating we were dying of heat from both the humidity and also all of the smoke and heat from the fire, so we w
alked back to the ocean to take some pictures. We ended up laughing so much and getting some really great pictures - it was a great end to our time at the beach. We then headed back to the hotel, gathered our stuff, and got on the bus. We boarded the buses at 1, didn't leave until 1:30. Less than an hour later we were sitting in traffic. All of the cars and buses were also waiting to get on the ferry to take us back to the mainland. We sat in traffic for over TWO HOURS. Then, when we got to the place to board the ferry, we sat in the parking lot for over 30 minutes waiting to get on the boat. Needless to say, all of us were not happy. It was raining and we just wanted to go home. While we were in traffic I really had to go to the bathroom but they said there was nowhere to go. A little later they pointed to a tiny blue building on the side of the road and said I could use that. So about six of us girls climb out of the bus, make our way through the traffic, and go to the bathroom. Chinese bathrooms are sick, let alone ones on the side of the road, so I opted to just pee in the grass. Melissa and I took turns holding the umbrella up to block the view, but Melissa ended up touching the blue building and stained her hand with blue paint. Then we look up and see our buses have actually moved in the traffic and are now quite far away. So all of us are dying laughing, in the rain with no umbrellas, a blue hand, and now running on the side of the road trying to catch up with our buses. We finally found then, jumped the guard rail, and pushed through traffic to get on. It was good comic relief. Finally we got to the boat, got on, played some cards while we rode to the mainland, and got back on the road. The mood in the bus was definitely sour. This was one of the tightest buses I've ever been in. I'm not that tall, but sitting up straight my knees were hitting the seat in front of me. All of us were super uncomfortable because the seats were made for Chinese people. We stopped later on and picked up KFC, which the program paid for, which we were very grateful for. We kept driving and driving, stopping every now and then to go to the bathroom in a Chinese rest stop. I don't know about the rest of the bus, but my friends and I were literally going crazy. We finally got back to our dorm at 10:30. A trip that should've taken 5ish hours took 9. It was out of control. Even though the trip ended up kind of a bad note with the long, uncomfortable bus ride, it was a fun weekend. The weather was kind of a bummer, but that can't be helped. The beach was super crowded and not as relaxing as I hoped, but I still got some sun, played in the Pacific, and had a lot of fun with my friends. It was weird knowing that was our last trip of this program. We're coming home in 11 days!
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