6/24/2010 (still typed on 6/26)
After the language study (we actually read stuff out in English that was both grammatically correct and incorrect and we had to remember the last word in the sentence) and a reading comprehension portion. We ended pretty early so Elton and I head back to hang out. After watching some…interesting videos…I get a phone call from my language partner saying today we had a meeting date. I’m 100 percent sure she didn’t tell me this, but I depart and we go to a nearby KFC to talk. We can’t go anywhere far because it was a little after 3pm and the group had to meet back at 5 for dinner.
We talked about the Shanghai Expo and all that jazz. She told me about the USA pavilion’s 8 hour line :O I sort of want to see it just for China or whoever’s take on the States, but I also don’t want to be in line for almost half a day. Yang Ni told me that because I’m a foreigner I can cut in line, but I told her I really don’t want to do that (lest I get jumped by angry Chinese people, eh heh…). But really, I couldn’t do that in good faith.
I still want to see the Japanese pavilion just to see the inside and what they have going on in there. Other than that, Carly decided on going to pavilions of the countries that are less known, like Romania or Czech Republic. I definitely want to see as many pavilions as possible, but I want to go inside the lesser known ones.
I won’t lie, I want to get Haibao (海宝）memorabilia. He’s the blue guy, the Expo’s mascot of sorts. I’m getting pretty excited to see such a large event that spans international borders.
At 5pm the group walks to Canteen, a restaurant right off of campus to have dinner. We then hop on the bus and head to the performing arts theatre to see Chinese acrobats. The group really loved it, which I’m glad, because Whitney was starting to get homesick and kinda down. I was sitting next to her and she was so excited by the performances, so I’m glad something got her mind off of her homesickness. It was the same one we saw last summer with the guy balancing the pot on his head, the hoop jumpers, hula hoop girls, the guy and girl who performed to “My heart will go on”, and the finale, of course, the cage of death with the motorcycles while the Star Wars theme song played in the background.
Afterwards, we return to campus. I go out with Carly and Elton to get some lamb burgers (it was my first time having them). They are SOOOO good! I think it used to be the restaurant with the cat. They sectioned it off into two spaces where the back had the hotpot place and the front had the lamb burgers for only 4 yuan. They have a hunk of lamb skewered on this metal pole that’s attached to this stove top (I’ll take pics later) and they cut off small pieces of lamb and let it cook on the stove top. They mix it in with some shredded lettuce and sprinkled some powdered seasoning on it :D Simple yet delicious. Why oh why can’t the States have such good eats?
Monday, July 5, 2010
I'm behind, part 2
Anyhoodies, we made our way back to Shanghai. Alex decided that we needed a ‘group theme song’ so people started singing all of these songs *many were pretty throwback, haha* and yes, Don’t Stop Believing was one of them. I managed to doze off on the bus (rides in the rain usually do that to me) and wake up to find us back in Shanghai. It was kind of surreal to do that in another country. It felt like I was in the twilight zone having dozed off in Hangzhou and woken up in Shanghai. I do that in the States, but everything’s different in another country, eh?
I didn’t want to leave the dorm for dinner so I hunkered down with some bread and a few cookies and crackers, haha. Unusually unhealthy for me. After maybe an hour, Elton walks in and asks if any of us want to go out to eat because he and the guys were going to a restaurant near campus. I agree *to watch them eat, ahha* but I ended up getting a 2 Yuan vegetable soup. It was nothing to write home about, but it was cheap, I wasn’t that hungry, and it had vegetable matter in it.
We depart after some interesting conversation (the two other girls that came along sat together so I sat among four guys, eh heh…).
I have a quiz tomorrow which I feel eerily confident about since I started studying early :P I’m sleepy now :O Happy Father’s Day :D
It was on the second floor…which meant I didn’t have to climb all six like I do for class, heh. I get there with Elton because he has the same slot as me, and we walk into this small room with three laptops set up and two desks. We each take a seat, give the guy our Chinese names (which is easy for Elton because he’s actually Chinese :P Well, moreso than I, fufu). To sum it up, we each read a powerpoint talking about ‘head requests’, which is essentially making a request to someone. There are requests according to power, social status, and amount of intimacy between the two speakers. Like, the words you use are different if you’re asking something from your professor rather than asking something from a fellow student or a close friend.
Apparently, you’re not supposed to use 可以 when asking for something from a friend which is what we’ve been TAUGHT to do. Bleh. The power point also said that Chinese language speakers are often indirect when asking for something by placing 吧 at the end while native speakers use direct methods “你给我那个书”à “You give me the book” instead of having a 吧 at the end which is more “polite”.
With professors and higher ups, you use 您看, something like “you see” with the formal usage of ‘you’, followed by 能不能 or 能。。。吗？
Anyway, the first part of this study is to read all of this info then apply it to the situations that are on the screen. We had to speak it on the spot which felt really awkward. The first time I did it, I completely blanked and there was maybe a 15 second pause, haha. I really do hate this part of the study. After that was listening comprehension about what we just learned. We were given situation, then hear what the person would have said (their head request) and we pick whether it was pragmatically appropriate and grammatically correct, pragmatically inappropriate and grammatically correct, or pragmatically inappropriate and grammatically correct. Long story short, I was happy to be out of there. Too bad I have to do it for five more days :P
As far as my situational Chinese… I often have no idea what I want to do or talk about with my language partner, so I finally look up some places in Shanghai that I haven’t been to yet. Since this is my second time here in Shanghai, I always feel a little bad when my partner asks if I’m been to such and such place, and I either respond “yes” or “we’re going sometime this week.” :/ SO, to remedy this, I hop onto Google (Hong Kong version, heh).
I’m searching around partly for places I haven’t been to and partly for off-the-beaten-path locations. I stumble across the Shanghai natural history museum (上海自然博物馆 ). I read a few reviews…and I’m sort of not surprised, haha. Not the best reviews in the world, but I LOVE natural history museums (mostly the animal part, I could care less about the human evolution). I was also excited about the gift shop :O The poor reviews were by expats, but there were one or two good reviews by tourists and stuff (however that much counts…). It’s a really old museum but I really don’t mind. Old or pristine, it’s what’s inside that counts :P
So at this point, I’m all hyped up to go to a natural history museum in China. My partner arrives and I tell her where we can go for the day. She has no idea where it is (I copied down the address but she still wasn’t familiar with it) so we go back up to my room so she can look it up on the map. After that, we head out and wave down a taxi. The trip was only 26 yuan, a little under 4USD. BUT…on the way there, Yang Ni (my partner) makes a phone call. When she hangs up she says “The museum is closed on Mondays”. :O
:O
>:O
Of course the day we decide to go is the only day of the week that it’s closed. GAH.
Instead of wandering around aimlessly, we walk to the subway station and take it to another part of downtown (not 南京路 Nanjing Rd.) We go to the giant circular bridge raised above the street that gives you a really cool view of the city and we walk around (this is where my current Facebook profile pic is located). We then go inside to this GIANT 10 story mall. Methinks the minimum amount of floors in a Chinese mall is five…. The stores were mostly high-end and all that jazz.
On the fourth floor, Yang Ni finds the restaurant she was looking for. It’s a place that serves traditional Shanghai food. I had chicken in duck blood soup (I had duck blood once before). The duck blood has the consistency of 豆腐 (tofu), but slighty chewy once you starting biting it. It has no real taste, surprisingly. I added some vinegar and chili sauce to spice it up a little. It tasted better after that :D I also ate some glutinous rice balls in fermented rice soup à 酒孃小圆子。
Haha, Yang Ni warned me that the taste was…interesting. And sure enough it was (I may add this entry to me food blog…). It tasted like I was eating rice in wine. I believe the type of rice they put in it is used to help make the wine. Either way, the taste was a bit strong for me. I jokingly asked if her intention was to liquor me up, haha. She said it wasn’t strong enough and it wasn’t that type of wine. I had maybe three sips of it, but the taste was a little too strong for me :O
The Shanghai spring rolls were pretty good. By biased self still likes the Cantonese version better, but they were still 好吃。
Last but not least, the Sweet Glutinous Rice Cake. It tasted good, but too much glutinous rice at once can be overkill on my palette, haha. They had sort of a flowery taste to them. Definitely sweet, but tactfully so. Almost like chewing on a rose petal; that type of flowery sweet.
It was a good meal and we decided to try for the museum the next time we met :D
6/22/2010 (but typed on 6/26)
I’m getting perfect scores on all of my quizzes so far. Now, instead of just writing the characters, we have to write the character, pinyin, English translation, and make a sentence. The total score has also been moved up to 120. I think everyone in the class is doing fairly well, even if some of them struggle with memorizing the characters.
After class I go to the language study with the dude and just to reading comprehension exercises that I was totally fine with, and it didn’t take an hour something of our time, maybe a little over half and hour :D
The class meets in room 620 for a lecture on Lu Xun (that I’ve heard before) and afterwards we proceed to the museum in the park. I kind of skim through it since I’ve already seen it and we walk to Pizza Hut afterwards. The pizzas are pretty good, I admit, but their apple juice is awesome! It’s kind of like you’re eating liquid apple candy, but it’s tactfully done. It was sweeter than the average apple juice found in the states, but I didn’t think “this is sugar water”. It was just nice and sweet, if that makes any sense.
Anywhodies, we all get back to the dorm and Carly and I hunker down for a night in. Elton appears in our room after a while (Carly and I have an open door policy where we leave our door open and people can wander in at will…which they do). He accidentally left his room card in his wallet which was in his room and Ryan (his roommate) was off somewhere. SO, he ends up in our room and talks for a bit. This began at maybe 6-7pm. I also think this is the day I got the program on my computer to surf sites that I previously couldn’t so I was in and out for some of the conversation. When I got back, we looked at a couple of videos and stuffs.
The highlight of our evening was when Elton and Carly was discussing movies and music and she mentioned “Requiem of a Dream”, methinks, and there’s that one song that’s really famous and everyone has probably heard it before but they didn’t’ know the title. It’s one of those intense songs, so we started playing around with it. At first we joked about going to the library with the song in the background and how you’d do everything intensely. From there it kind of spiraled out of control and we tried to think of all of these mundane situations that you could perform with the music in the background. Two of mine were favorited by them: Petting the cat and eating samples at Costco. This went on for about an hour and something. Carly managed to get some of it on film (hopefully this wont’ end up on Youtube, haha). We made a list of things we’d do to the music next time. Yeah, this is what we do when we’re not studying :D
6/23/2010 (typed on 6/26)
My partner didn’t show up today :O I heard that there was some big exam but my partner didn’t tell me we were rescheduling. I found that out the next day, eh heh. So I got a free afternoon, save for the language research thing. I had to speak again. UGH. Annoying~. With those head request sentences. Boo.
There was another girl waiting downstairs and I wondered if she was a replacement for Wang Ni to hang out with. She wasn’t, heh, but we talked for a good while. She’s a freelance recruiter for models. She’s looking for Western models and she gave me her name and number and everything. I had a few people in mind that would maybe want to model, so I told her I’d help. We also discussed teaching in China and their ever growing demand, and learning Chinese fluently. She gave me some really encouraging words, especially about the teaching in China part. She also suggested I seek out a Chinese boyfriend. Haha, like I haven’t already started my search ;D Wouldn’t my grandmother be ecstatic, haha. I also got to practice some of my Chinese with her :D We eventually parted ways and I headed back up to my room.
Carly and I had some rare free time, so I took her to Duolun lu, the antique district of that area. We were looking for scrolls and I saw this one huge and beautiful one of fish, but it was 360 yuan. A little steep for me.
Anyway, I don’t think too much else went on today. Elton came to hang out in our room again around 8, maybe, and we watched some you tube videos. Either yesterday or today I was introduced to “The Grapist”, which, if you like slightly immoral humor like me, you’ll enjoy it :D
Elton left around midnight, maybe, and we went to bed soon after.
I didn’t want to leave the dorm for dinner so I hunkered down with some bread and a few cookies and crackers, haha. Unusually unhealthy for me. After maybe an hour, Elton walks in and asks if any of us want to go out to eat because he and the guys were going to a restaurant near campus. I agree *to watch them eat, ahha* but I ended up getting a 2 Yuan vegetable soup. It was nothing to write home about, but it was cheap, I wasn’t that hungry, and it had vegetable matter in it.
We depart after some interesting conversation (the two other girls that came along sat together so I sat among four guys, eh heh…).
I have a quiz tomorrow which I feel eerily confident about since I started studying early :P I’m sleepy now :O Happy Father’s Day :D
It was on the second floor…which meant I didn’t have to climb all six like I do for class, heh. I get there with Elton because he has the same slot as me, and we walk into this small room with three laptops set up and two desks. We each take a seat, give the guy our Chinese names (which is easy for Elton because he’s actually Chinese :P Well, moreso than I, fufu). To sum it up, we each read a powerpoint talking about ‘head requests’, which is essentially making a request to someone. There are requests according to power, social status, and amount of intimacy between the two speakers. Like, the words you use are different if you’re asking something from your professor rather than asking something from a fellow student or a close friend.
Apparently, you’re not supposed to use 可以 when asking for something from a friend which is what we’ve been TAUGHT to do. Bleh. The power point also said that Chinese language speakers are often indirect when asking for something by placing 吧 at the end while native speakers use direct methods “你给我那个书”à “You give me the book” instead of having a 吧 at the end which is more “polite”.
With professors and higher ups, you use 您看, something like “you see” with the formal usage of ‘you’, followed by 能不能 or 能。。。吗？
Anyway, the first part of this study is to read all of this info then apply it to the situations that are on the screen. We had to speak it on the spot which felt really awkward. The first time I did it, I completely blanked and there was maybe a 15 second pause, haha. I really do hate this part of the study. After that was listening comprehension about what we just learned. We were given situation, then hear what the person would have said (their head request) and we pick whether it was pragmatically appropriate and grammatically correct, pragmatically inappropriate and grammatically correct, or pragmatically inappropriate and grammatically correct. Long story short, I was happy to be out of there. Too bad I have to do it for five more days :P
As far as my situational Chinese… I often have no idea what I want to do or talk about with my language partner, so I finally look up some places in Shanghai that I haven’t been to yet. Since this is my second time here in Shanghai, I always feel a little bad when my partner asks if I’m been to such and such place, and I either respond “yes” or “we’re going sometime this week.” :/ SO, to remedy this, I hop onto Google (Hong Kong version, heh).
I’m searching around partly for places I haven’t been to and partly for off-the-beaten-path locations. I stumble across the Shanghai natural history museum (上海自然博物馆 ). I read a few reviews…and I’m sort of not surprised, haha. Not the best reviews in the world, but I LOVE natural history museums (mostly the animal part, I could care less about the human evolution). I was also excited about the gift shop :O The poor reviews were by expats, but there were one or two good reviews by tourists and stuff (however that much counts…). It’s a really old museum but I really don’t mind. Old or pristine, it’s what’s inside that counts :P
So at this point, I’m all hyped up to go to a natural history museum in China. My partner arrives and I tell her where we can go for the day. She has no idea where it is (I copied down the address but she still wasn’t familiar with it) so we go back up to my room so she can look it up on the map. After that, we head out and wave down a taxi. The trip was only 26 yuan, a little under 4USD. BUT…on the way there, Yang Ni (my partner) makes a phone call. When she hangs up she says “The museum is closed on Mondays”. :O
:O
>:O
Of course the day we decide to go is the only day of the week that it’s closed. GAH.
Instead of wandering around aimlessly, we walk to the subway station and take it to another part of downtown (not 南京路 Nanjing Rd.) We go to the giant circular bridge raised above the street that gives you a really cool view of the city and we walk around (this is where my current Facebook profile pic is located). We then go inside to this GIANT 10 story mall. Methinks the minimum amount of floors in a Chinese mall is five…. The stores were mostly high-end and all that jazz.
On the fourth floor, Yang Ni finds the restaurant she was looking for. It’s a place that serves traditional Shanghai food. I had chicken in duck blood soup (I had duck blood once before). The duck blood has the consistency of 豆腐 (tofu), but slighty chewy once you starting biting it. It has no real taste, surprisingly. I added some vinegar and chili sauce to spice it up a little. It tasted better after that :D I also ate some glutinous rice balls in fermented rice soup à 酒孃小圆子。
Haha, Yang Ni warned me that the taste was…interesting. And sure enough it was (I may add this entry to me food blog…). It tasted like I was eating rice in wine. I believe the type of rice they put in it is used to help make the wine. Either way, the taste was a bit strong for me. I jokingly asked if her intention was to liquor me up, haha. She said it wasn’t strong enough and it wasn’t that type of wine. I had maybe three sips of it, but the taste was a little too strong for me :O
The Shanghai spring rolls were pretty good. By biased self still likes the Cantonese version better, but they were still 好吃。
Last but not least, the Sweet Glutinous Rice Cake. It tasted good, but too much glutinous rice at once can be overkill on my palette, haha. They had sort of a flowery taste to them. Definitely sweet, but tactfully so. Almost like chewing on a rose petal; that type of flowery sweet.
It was a good meal and we decided to try for the museum the next time we met :D
6/22/2010 (but typed on 6/26)
I’m getting perfect scores on all of my quizzes so far. Now, instead of just writing the characters, we have to write the character, pinyin, English translation, and make a sentence. The total score has also been moved up to 120. I think everyone in the class is doing fairly well, even if some of them struggle with memorizing the characters.
After class I go to the language study with the dude and just to reading comprehension exercises that I was totally fine with, and it didn’t take an hour something of our time, maybe a little over half and hour :D
The class meets in room 620 for a lecture on Lu Xun (that I’ve heard before) and afterwards we proceed to the museum in the park. I kind of skim through it since I’ve already seen it and we walk to Pizza Hut afterwards. The pizzas are pretty good, I admit, but their apple juice is awesome! It’s kind of like you’re eating liquid apple candy, but it’s tactfully done. It was sweeter than the average apple juice found in the states, but I didn’t think “this is sugar water”. It was just nice and sweet, if that makes any sense.
Anywhodies, we all get back to the dorm and Carly and I hunker down for a night in. Elton appears in our room after a while (Carly and I have an open door policy where we leave our door open and people can wander in at will…which they do). He accidentally left his room card in his wallet which was in his room and Ryan (his roommate) was off somewhere. SO, he ends up in our room and talks for a bit. This began at maybe 6-7pm. I also think this is the day I got the program on my computer to surf sites that I previously couldn’t so I was in and out for some of the conversation. When I got back, we looked at a couple of videos and stuffs.
The highlight of our evening was when Elton and Carly was discussing movies and music and she mentioned “Requiem of a Dream”, methinks, and there’s that one song that’s really famous and everyone has probably heard it before but they didn’t’ know the title. It’s one of those intense songs, so we started playing around with it. At first we joked about going to the library with the song in the background and how you’d do everything intensely. From there it kind of spiraled out of control and we tried to think of all of these mundane situations that you could perform with the music in the background. Two of mine were favorited by them: Petting the cat and eating samples at Costco. This went on for about an hour and something. Carly managed to get some of it on film (hopefully this wont’ end up on Youtube, haha). We made a list of things we’d do to the music next time. Yeah, this is what we do when we’re not studying :D
6/23/2010 (typed on 6/26)
My partner didn’t show up today :O I heard that there was some big exam but my partner didn’t tell me we were rescheduling. I found that out the next day, eh heh. So I got a free afternoon, save for the language research thing. I had to speak again. UGH. Annoying~. With those head request sentences. Boo.
There was another girl waiting downstairs and I wondered if she was a replacement for Wang Ni to hang out with. She wasn’t, heh, but we talked for a good while. She’s a freelance recruiter for models. She’s looking for Western models and she gave me her name and number and everything. I had a few people in mind that would maybe want to model, so I told her I’d help. We also discussed teaching in China and their ever growing demand, and learning Chinese fluently. She gave me some really encouraging words, especially about the teaching in China part. She also suggested I seek out a Chinese boyfriend. Haha, like I haven’t already started my search ;D Wouldn’t my grandmother be ecstatic, haha. I also got to practice some of my Chinese with her :D We eventually parted ways and I headed back up to my room.
Carly and I had some rare free time, so I took her to Duolun lu, the antique district of that area. We were looking for scrolls and I saw this one huge and beautiful one of fish, but it was 360 yuan. A little steep for me.
Anyway, I don’t think too much else went on today. Elton came to hang out in our room again around 8, maybe, and we watched some you tube videos. Either yesterday or today I was introduced to “The Grapist”, which, if you like slightly immoral humor like me, you’ll enjoy it :D
Elton left around midnight, maybe, and we went to bed soon after.
Okay...so I'm behind
Really behind.
I'll go ahead and post these, and if I have time, I'll add pictures and stuffs :D a little over a week left :O
6/18/2010
Ah, such a fun day :D Classes went on as usual, but my language partner and Whitney’s language partner are roommates (I think) so we all decided to go out to eat dinner at 5pm. Elton tagged along at the last moment so we took a bus down to the Pudong area, I’m guessing. I wasn’t really paying attention. We eat at this restaurant that’s pretty snazzy looking inside this GIGANTIC mall. I mean, it took us a good ten minutes just to navigate through the stores, going up escalators in and out of stores. We finally meet up with Leah and her partner and eat. Whitney and I shared some stir fried boneless chicken with rice and vegetables. It was okay (says the hardcore Chinese cuisine critic). >:D
We split the check and head out afterwards. I didn’t know we were going to see a movie until they mentioned it after dinner. Whitney and her partner left for McDonald’s to see the World Cup while the rest of us went to see Toy Story 3, haha. My first movie theatre experience in China. It was very interesting. We also saw the movie in 3D, but what isn’t in 3D nowadays? I really did have a LOT of fun that night, because I’m typically the stay at home person who finds fun in studying and reading books :J I think it’s good for me to hang out like that on occasion :D
I wont’ give anything away, but I really like it. It was ‘deeper’ than the previous two movies, if that makes any sense. And a little traumatizing at parts. It was definitely funny and I had a really good time. I feel like my partner and I have less awkward moments between each other now, so that’s good. Oh, and before we headed out for lunch we talked about Chinese online shopping websites, baidu forums, and internet slang, like 囧. It kind of looks like a face with the eyebrows slanted and the mouth open. It’s a sort of “ I can’t believe you said that” emoticon, but it’s actually a Chinese character. I learned a lot, and she showed me some videos and stuff. I learned that on the baidu forums and newsfeeds (帖子) you can discuss politics, but the government will still censor out things they find threatening or offensive to China and the Party. I thought that was interesting that even though they censor and/or delete some comments, that still let a forum topic like politics exist. HRMMMM……
6/19/2010
Our trip to Hangzhou :O We left at 8 in the morning on a two-ish hour bus ride. When we arrived, it was pretty hot. Last summer when we arrived it was starting to rain :O Our first stop was the hotel which was the exact same hotel as last year. So, nice hotel two years in a row :D We were room 1022. I was happy we had a fairly high up room (even though our view was just a smidge of the city and part of the hotel since it sort of wrapped around in a U-shaped). We spent about thirty minutes settling in. The pillows were SOOOOO SOFT :D
After we settled in, we headed out for lunch. It was one of those places where the food is already ordered. I think they had a tofu dish that I really liked. After that, we headed out to West Lake. It was a blazing inferno D: I just can’t take hot weather. Just because I was born and raised in the South (Southern Georgia, of all places), I dislike the heat. I can stand it better than some people, but I still want hot weather punched in the face :P I smartly brought my umbrella (unlike last time) to shade me from the sun.
The boat we used to get around West Lake was smaller than last summer’s. I, the genius that I was, sat outside with my umbrella in one hand and camera in the other. I’m so glad I brought I competent camera this time :O I put on sunscreen on my face and body before we left, so when I started sweating, sweat mixed with sunscreen started dripping into my eyes and they started burning. I’m sure it looked like I was crying because I felt tears coming out so I used my shirt sleeves the best I could to alleviate the pain in my eyes.
After that subsided, we eventually docked. West Lake was beautiful, as usual, and it’s interesting to me that I’ve seen it both on a rainy day (the prettiest version according to many) and a dry day. After taking a walk through pretty scenery back to the bus, we headed over to the tea shop. Long story short (since I’ve been here already), I ended up buying a small canister of green tea, 120 yuan, 17 USD. I will spend some dollars on food, I admit :D I’m going to get some of the flower tea somewhere else. I know it was a legit tea house an all, but that spiel she gives is still a little touristy, so I’d like to go to an off the beaten path tea place and buy some (or cop out and go to Carrefour, haha).
We left the tea house and headed for lunch where food was pre-ordered :/ Afterwards we went to a pagoda near the lake (I only went to the second floor than back down because I’ve been there before). Yes, I could have used the exercise and maybe I would have seen something new, but I didn’t want to test my insurance twice with those stairs, haha. So, I left early and made my way to sit on the steps facing the pagoda and started to sketch it in my notebook. All of these Chinese people started looking over my shoulder and standing near me, watching me. I won’t lie. That’s annoying no matter what country I’m in. >:J
Dinner was next where we ate more pre-ordered food and then back to the hotel. We had to be up by 7:30am the next morning, eat breakfast in the dining room, and be checked out and everything by 8:30am. Haha, interesting things happened. Carly and I, for some reason I can’t remember, started talking about nutrition and organic food, and the whole fair (or free?) trade label that promises the country that produces the product gets a cut of the profit, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee the people in the field get a cut. No matter what the product, from clothes, electronics, and most foods, there is some sort of labor or slave labor involved. THEN we got on the topic of human trafficking and sex trafficking.
We picked a happy topic after that and laughed for a while, then we sort of segued into some “girl talk” and ended up staying up until 2 in the morning :O Carly went ahead to bed and I took my shower first because I felt so disgusting. I wish the water pressure in the shower was a bit stronger :P I know they’re conserving water and all but, well, I’m a spoiled American brat ;O
6/20/2010
Father’s Day! I will call my dad >^..^<
Miraculously I get up the next morning at 7:22am and start to get ready. We gather all of our things and head down for breakfast. It was pretty okay, sort of on par with the breakfast I had last summer. But I do love anything buffet style :DDD
We finished up, gathered, and headed out to leave such a nice hotel. It was rainy (essentially the other weather type in Hangzhou, it’s twin being a raging inferno of heat…) and we ride to a large Buddhist temple. By this time it’s a little drizzly and I lend Naomi my umbrella. I walk past the first temple complex to the back one where there’s less tourists and noise. It was so much more peaceful back there :D On my way back, I pass some monks chanting to a drum. It was so beautiful so I paused and listened it. The moment was absolutely gorgeous. It was raining just enough to create a light mist, and I was surrounded by sacred space and music with this rhythmic chanting. I wanted to take video just to record the chanting but thought better of it; it just didn’t feel right. That and taking pictures of the giant statues of the gods within the temple. Of course, other people did…
By the end of our time in the temple, the rain picks up just a little bit. I wasn’t about to search through hundreds of people to find Naomi so I waited just outside under some trees. I was waiting for someone I knew that had an umbrella so I could walk with them. I see Ryan come out (without an umbrella because he lent his to Amy) and we decide to go ahead and walk to the bus. Long story short, we ended up pretty much soaking wet. I was so glad I had water resistant sandals because I HATE the feeling of wet socks. I was so uncomfortable in my skin because I hate being damp from the rain.
After we all gathered on the bus, we rode to get lunch and then to History Street with a bunch of vendors selling stuff. I saw these CUTE key chains that had plastic food in them, for 1 yuan! SO, I bought nine :D I considered buying a dress or skirt and one of the stores for 50 yuan, but decided against it. Then I saw the bakery and bought three different types of bread. One is a pineapple bread of sorts, another is a Taiwanese crescent, and the third is a milk pudding bread, methinks. I tried to first two (and will write a report on the tastes) but the third one I’ll try tomorrow.
I LOVE BREAD AND BAKERIES :D
Anyhoodies, we made our way back to Shanghai. Alex decided that we needed a ‘group theme song’ so people started singing all of these songs *many were pretty throwback, haha* and yes, Don’t Stop Believing was one of them. I managed to doze off on the bus (rides in the rain usually do that to me) and wake up to find us back in Shanghai. It was kind of surreal to do that in another country. It felt like I was in the twilight zone having dozed off in Hangzhou and woken up in Shanghai. I do that in the States, but everything’s different in another country, eh?
I didn’t want to leave the dorm for dinner so I hunkered down with some bread and a few cookies and crackers, haha. Unusually unhealthy for me. After maybe an hour, Elton walks in and asks if any of us want to go out to eat because he and the guys were going to a restaurant near campus. I agree *to watch them eat, ahha* but I ended up getting a 2 Yuan vegetable soup. It was nothing to write home about, but it was cheap, I wasn’t that hungry, and it had vegetable matter in it.
We depart after some interesting conversation (the two other girls that came along sat together so I sat among four guys, eh heh…).
I have a quiz tomorrow which I feel eerily confident about since I started studying early :P I’m sleepy now :O Happy Father’s Day :D
I'll go ahead and post these, and if I have time, I'll add pictures and stuffs :D a little over a week left :O
6/18/2010
Ah, such a fun day :D Classes went on as usual, but my language partner and Whitney’s language partner are roommates (I think) so we all decided to go out to eat dinner at 5pm. Elton tagged along at the last moment so we took a bus down to the Pudong area, I’m guessing. I wasn’t really paying attention. We eat at this restaurant that’s pretty snazzy looking inside this GIGANTIC mall. I mean, it took us a good ten minutes just to navigate through the stores, going up escalators in and out of stores. We finally meet up with Leah and her partner and eat. Whitney and I shared some stir fried boneless chicken with rice and vegetables. It was okay (says the hardcore Chinese cuisine critic). >:D
We split the check and head out afterwards. I didn’t know we were going to see a movie until they mentioned it after dinner. Whitney and her partner left for McDonald’s to see the World Cup while the rest of us went to see Toy Story 3, haha. My first movie theatre experience in China. It was very interesting. We also saw the movie in 3D, but what isn’t in 3D nowadays? I really did have a LOT of fun that night, because I’m typically the stay at home person who finds fun in studying and reading books :J I think it’s good for me to hang out like that on occasion :D
I wont’ give anything away, but I really like it. It was ‘deeper’ than the previous two movies, if that makes any sense. And a little traumatizing at parts. It was definitely funny and I had a really good time. I feel like my partner and I have less awkward moments between each other now, so that’s good. Oh, and before we headed out for lunch we talked about Chinese online shopping websites, baidu forums, and internet slang, like 囧. It kind of looks like a face with the eyebrows slanted and the mouth open. It’s a sort of “ I can’t believe you said that” emoticon, but it’s actually a Chinese character. I learned a lot, and she showed me some videos and stuff. I learned that on the baidu forums and newsfeeds (帖子) you can discuss politics, but the government will still censor out things they find threatening or offensive to China and the Party. I thought that was interesting that even though they censor and/or delete some comments, that still let a forum topic like politics exist. HRMMMM……
6/19/2010
Our trip to Hangzhou :O We left at 8 in the morning on a two-ish hour bus ride. When we arrived, it was pretty hot. Last summer when we arrived it was starting to rain :O Our first stop was the hotel which was the exact same hotel as last year. So, nice hotel two years in a row :D We were room 1022. I was happy we had a fairly high up room (even though our view was just a smidge of the city and part of the hotel since it sort of wrapped around in a U-shaped). We spent about thirty minutes settling in. The pillows were SOOOOO SOFT :D
After we settled in, we headed out for lunch. It was one of those places where the food is already ordered. I think they had a tofu dish that I really liked. After that, we headed out to West Lake. It was a blazing inferno D: I just can’t take hot weather. Just because I was born and raised in the South (Southern Georgia, of all places), I dislike the heat. I can stand it better than some people, but I still want hot weather punched in the face :P I smartly brought my umbrella (unlike last time) to shade me from the sun.
The boat we used to get around West Lake was smaller than last summer’s. I, the genius that I was, sat outside with my umbrella in one hand and camera in the other. I’m so glad I brought I competent camera this time :O I put on sunscreen on my face and body before we left, so when I started sweating, sweat mixed with sunscreen started dripping into my eyes and they started burning. I’m sure it looked like I was crying because I felt tears coming out so I used my shirt sleeves the best I could to alleviate the pain in my eyes.
After that subsided, we eventually docked. West Lake was beautiful, as usual, and it’s interesting to me that I’ve seen it both on a rainy day (the prettiest version according to many) and a dry day. After taking a walk through pretty scenery back to the bus, we headed over to the tea shop. Long story short (since I’ve been here already), I ended up buying a small canister of green tea, 120 yuan, 17 USD. I will spend some dollars on food, I admit :D I’m going to get some of the flower tea somewhere else. I know it was a legit tea house an all, but that spiel she gives is still a little touristy, so I’d like to go to an off the beaten path tea place and buy some (or cop out and go to Carrefour, haha).
We left the tea house and headed for lunch where food was pre-ordered :/ Afterwards we went to a pagoda near the lake (I only went to the second floor than back down because I’ve been there before). Yes, I could have used the exercise and maybe I would have seen something new, but I didn’t want to test my insurance twice with those stairs, haha. So, I left early and made my way to sit on the steps facing the pagoda and started to sketch it in my notebook. All of these Chinese people started looking over my shoulder and standing near me, watching me. I won’t lie. That’s annoying no matter what country I’m in. >:J
Dinner was next where we ate more pre-ordered food and then back to the hotel. We had to be up by 7:30am the next morning, eat breakfast in the dining room, and be checked out and everything by 8:30am. Haha, interesting things happened. Carly and I, for some reason I can’t remember, started talking about nutrition and organic food, and the whole fair (or free?) trade label that promises the country that produces the product gets a cut of the profit, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee the people in the field get a cut. No matter what the product, from clothes, electronics, and most foods, there is some sort of labor or slave labor involved. THEN we got on the topic of human trafficking and sex trafficking.
We picked a happy topic after that and laughed for a while, then we sort of segued into some “girl talk” and ended up staying up until 2 in the morning :O Carly went ahead to bed and I took my shower first because I felt so disgusting. I wish the water pressure in the shower was a bit stronger :P I know they’re conserving water and all but, well, I’m a spoiled American brat ;O
6/20/2010
Father’s Day! I will call my dad >^..^<
Miraculously I get up the next morning at 7:22am and start to get ready. We gather all of our things and head down for breakfast. It was pretty okay, sort of on par with the breakfast I had last summer. But I do love anything buffet style :DDD
We finished up, gathered, and headed out to leave such a nice hotel. It was rainy (essentially the other weather type in Hangzhou, it’s twin being a raging inferno of heat…) and we ride to a large Buddhist temple. By this time it’s a little drizzly and I lend Naomi my umbrella. I walk past the first temple complex to the back one where there’s less tourists and noise. It was so much more peaceful back there :D On my way back, I pass some monks chanting to a drum. It was so beautiful so I paused and listened it. The moment was absolutely gorgeous. It was raining just enough to create a light mist, and I was surrounded by sacred space and music with this rhythmic chanting. I wanted to take video just to record the chanting but thought better of it; it just didn’t feel right. That and taking pictures of the giant statues of the gods within the temple. Of course, other people did…
By the end of our time in the temple, the rain picks up just a little bit. I wasn’t about to search through hundreds of people to find Naomi so I waited just outside under some trees. I was waiting for someone I knew that had an umbrella so I could walk with them. I see Ryan come out (without an umbrella because he lent his to Amy) and we decide to go ahead and walk to the bus. Long story short, we ended up pretty much soaking wet. I was so glad I had water resistant sandals because I HATE the feeling of wet socks. I was so uncomfortable in my skin because I hate being damp from the rain.
After we all gathered on the bus, we rode to get lunch and then to History Street with a bunch of vendors selling stuff. I saw these CUTE key chains that had plastic food in them, for 1 yuan! SO, I bought nine :D I considered buying a dress or skirt and one of the stores for 50 yuan, but decided against it. Then I saw the bakery and bought three different types of bread. One is a pineapple bread of sorts, another is a Taiwanese crescent, and the third is a milk pudding bread, methinks. I tried to first two (and will write a report on the tastes) but the third one I’ll try tomorrow.
I LOVE BREAD AND BAKERIES :D
Anyhoodies, we made our way back to Shanghai. Alex decided that we needed a ‘group theme song’ so people started singing all of these songs *many were pretty throwback, haha* and yes, Don’t Stop Believing was one of them. I managed to doze off on the bus (rides in the rain usually do that to me) and wake up to find us back in Shanghai. It was kind of surreal to do that in another country. It felt like I was in the twilight zone having dozed off in Hangzhou and woken up in Shanghai. I do that in the States, but everything’s different in another country, eh?
I didn’t want to leave the dorm for dinner so I hunkered down with some bread and a few cookies and crackers, haha. Unusually unhealthy for me. After maybe an hour, Elton walks in and asks if any of us want to go out to eat because he and the guys were going to a restaurant near campus. I agree *to watch them eat, ahha* but I ended up getting a 2 Yuan vegetable soup. It was nothing to write home about, but it was cheap, I wasn’t that hungry, and it had vegetable matter in it.
We depart after some interesting conversation (the two other girls that came along sat together so I sat among four guys, eh heh…).
I have a quiz tomorrow which I feel eerily confident about since I started studying early :P I’m sleepy now :O Happy Father’s Day :D
Thursday, June 17, 2010
On a random aside...
I just found out that I've been admitted to Qinghua (Tsingua) University :D IT BETTER SNOW WHILE I'M THERE. Yays! Now to gather squalorships.
I actually caught up with the blogs!
6/17/2010
Oh wow, I’ve caught. I’m typing this up on the actual day of events. GO FIG. I took my second quiz on the words 晚会，刚才，门口，礼貌， 使用，保持，文明，服务 and maybe one other. I got a 105 J We get five extra credit points if we write the pinyin.
In my downtime I looked up some Asian horror movies and came across Men Behind the Sun. The video link was broken or something, so I watched the first hour of Philosophy of the Knife (or of Knives…can’t remember). Both are about Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII and the human medical experiments they conducted. It really says something when true events and/or films based on true events are listed in the horror genre. They got to teeth pulling in the latter film and I cut it off (that and because it kept freezing). Humanity at its worst, indeed.
We had a lecture on Chinese religion and philosophy, all of which I knew because I took classes on them with a professor who is a Harvard grad :O So I know my stuff :P. Carly is still feeling a little under the weather so I went out to a malatang place by myself with some bread I bought at Carrefour. When I was done I scanned the stationary store and went back.
I totally took a wrong turn off the elevator when I got to my floor (18th again, hoohoo….) and ended up in Andrew’s room. I noticed the door was open and we often keep ours open, so I figured Carly was up. I just casually walk in and note the music is playing (some RnB stuff) and thought oh, she’s feeling a lot better. I walk into the room and bit more and notice clothes folded everywhere and Andrew sitting on what I thought was her bed. I was like, where is Carly and why are you in our room-OH CRAP. So I played it off and made small conversation (we’re all pretty used to just walking into each other’s rooms if the door is open, so it was no biggie). I told him later on of my mistake and he laughed it off :D
It was a pretty short day. No offense to our language partners, but it was good to stay on campus the entire day. They often like to take us out around the city which is cool but exhausting as well.
I really need to jog again. All of this GOOD bread is getting to me, methinks :O
Oh wow, I’ve caught. I’m typing this up on the actual day of events. GO FIG. I took my second quiz on the words 晚会，刚才，门口，礼貌， 使用，保持，文明，服务 and maybe one other. I got a 105 J We get five extra credit points if we write the pinyin.
In my downtime I looked up some Asian horror movies and came across Men Behind the Sun. The video link was broken or something, so I watched the first hour of Philosophy of the Knife (or of Knives…can’t remember). Both are about Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII and the human medical experiments they conducted. It really says something when true events and/or films based on true events are listed in the horror genre. They got to teeth pulling in the latter film and I cut it off (that and because it kept freezing). Humanity at its worst, indeed.
We had a lecture on Chinese religion and philosophy, all of which I knew because I took classes on them with a professor who is a Harvard grad :O So I know my stuff :P. Carly is still feeling a little under the weather so I went out to a malatang place by myself with some bread I bought at Carrefour. When I was done I scanned the stationary store and went back.
I totally took a wrong turn off the elevator when I got to my floor (18th again, hoohoo….) and ended up in Andrew’s room. I noticed the door was open and we often keep ours open, so I figured Carly was up. I just casually walk in and note the music is playing (some RnB stuff) and thought oh, she’s feeling a lot better. I walk into the room and bit more and notice clothes folded everywhere and Andrew sitting on what I thought was her bed. I was like, where is Carly and why are you in our room-OH CRAP. So I played it off and made small conversation (we’re all pretty used to just walking into each other’s rooms if the door is open, so it was no biggie). I told him later on of my mistake and he laughed it off :D
It was a pretty short day. No offense to our language partners, but it was good to stay on campus the entire day. They often like to take us out around the city which is cool but exhausting as well.
I really need to jog again. All of this GOOD bread is getting to me, methinks :O
All over the place for serial
6/16/2010
Dragon boat festival! That means no school :D Carly and I went to Carrefour and totally loaded up on bread. As soon as I get the food blog I’ll post pics and comment on the tastes and stuff. I LOVE THE BREAD SO MUCH. We got this one bread that had this custard type filling in it (with dates or raisins?). It’s SO good. The bread is generally sweeter than American bread. Carrefour has a ‘western bread’ section, but we generally pass that by, haha. I also got a fried, braided bread that’s really good, and maybe three other kinds. I’m still looking for the “little piggy” bread, the one that looks like a pig <3 We also bought some yogurt <3 strawberry and peach, and some peanut butter and jelly. The peanut butter we bought has something like mini rice crispy treats! 很有意思！We DID look for Nutella, but to no avail. I think I’ll start putting rice crispies in my peanut butter now, haha. Two different types of crackers were bought and we made out way to the line. 一共一白三远。About 15 USD for a fair amount of stuff. We cut through the neighborhood on the way back and bought some fruit (nectarines, bananas…they look different, like..oblong…, yang mei berries, some other fruit, two peaches…) all for about 5 or 6 USD. So cheap~. Carly keeps saying how amazed she is at the prices in China, heehee. I’m just glad that other people are enjoying themselves :)
Aaannnddd~ I bought zongzi~~~~~~!!!! What can I say, I love the stuff. I saw a stall selling it in the apartment area so I didn’t buy any at Carrefour. I just went for the one that had the ‘meat’ character in it “肉“. It turned out to be sooo yummy! Not of that icky Chinese sausage nonsense! It had sticky rice (what it’s mainly made of), a bean of some sort, and beef, methinks. I wanted to go back for more! It was only about 1.40 Yuan, so 0.20 USD. I can seriously stock up on those~
Anywhizzles, after some downtime, I took Carly, Ryan, and Naomi to Qipu lu by taxi. We went to one of the stores and didn’t really get to look around that much because Ryan suggested that we meet every 45 minutes. The place is HUGE and crowded and like a maze, so I didn’t understand why we had to keep meeting. I saw another store with the shirts I wanted but they wouldn’t go down much. I think the next time I see a store like that, I’ll just risk paying “too much” and load up on them. Why? Because there are shirts that fit my decidedly large American frame (lengthwise and bust wise, heehee). I really do like the designs on those shirts. And the matching purses~~~I’m generally not a purse fiend, but they kind of remind me of the cute purse I got in Zhengzhou (with the help of Christa’s persuasion :D ).
As I said, we really didn’t get far. We only went into the first floor-ish of two buildings so we have much more exploring to do. There are also Mario shirts floating about! I want them~! I guess I have to go shopping in the guy’s section because I know those will fit me. If not, then that’s just…sad.
UGH. I REALLY want those shirts (and purse)! Mingyali, I think is the name brand. I’m also not a brand girl, but when I know I can’t find something in my home country, I like to stock up :P Oh well. BUDDHISM SAYS BE DETACHED. So I will. I did buy a black skirt for 35远, so 5USD. That’s the price I set it at, but after a few seconds, I thought “I genuinely don’t want this anymore”. I started walking away and they called me back twice, the second time with the price I set :/ Maybe I can give the skirt away? Haha. I need that type of nonchalance with my shirts! ARGHA.
We get back to the dorm around 7pm or so and I stay in for dinner. I’m trying to stay hydrated. I’m also not sick yet! It’s been about a week, so I’m being really conscious of my health. I’m drinking water and taking a multivitamin. Carly has a cold of some sort. She’s been feeling kind of miserable and I know that feeling a little too well. *The last time I had a cold was the DAY BEFORE my Chinese final at Tech. It was hell.*
Same ol’ same ol’ settling in to bed after that. I’ve gained the habit of leaving the door open so people generally walk in. I’m talking to a lot more of the program mates this time around, and *most* of them are really cool. I like that we’re comfortable enough with each other to just leave our doors open. People also know I’ve been on this trip before so they sometimes come in asking for advice about this or that. They’ll even swing by (as do I to their rooms) to ask if we want to all eat together or something J I really like it and this is someone who values her alone time. Ah well :O
Oh yes, I believe I called by dad for the second time today. It was good to hear his voice :) I missed cooking today because I’m usually cooking on some Chinese holiday or another. Ah well, again.
还有, the Chinese really like Lady Gaga, apparently. I kept hearing her songs in the bargain market.
Oh yeah, and I just realized...if you see a random "J", that's supposed to be a smiley face emoticon. It was when I typed it on Word, but I guess it didn't translate well :(
Dragon boat festival! That means no school :D Carly and I went to Carrefour and totally loaded up on bread. As soon as I get the food blog I’ll post pics and comment on the tastes and stuff. I LOVE THE BREAD SO MUCH. We got this one bread that had this custard type filling in it (with dates or raisins?). It’s SO good. The bread is generally sweeter than American bread. Carrefour has a ‘western bread’ section, but we generally pass that by, haha. I also got a fried, braided bread that’s really good, and maybe three other kinds. I’m still looking for the “little piggy” bread, the one that looks like a pig <3 We also bought some yogurt <3 strawberry and peach, and some peanut butter and jelly. The peanut butter we bought has something like mini rice crispy treats! 很有意思！We DID look for Nutella, but to no avail. I think I’ll start putting rice crispies in my peanut butter now, haha. Two different types of crackers were bought and we made out way to the line. 一共一白三远。About 15 USD for a fair amount of stuff. We cut through the neighborhood on the way back and bought some fruit (nectarines, bananas…they look different, like..oblong…, yang mei berries, some other fruit, two peaches…) all for about 5 or 6 USD. So cheap~. Carly keeps saying how amazed she is at the prices in China, heehee. I’m just glad that other people are enjoying themselves :)
Aaannnddd~ I bought zongzi~~~~~~!!!! What can I say, I love the stuff. I saw a stall selling it in the apartment area so I didn’t buy any at Carrefour. I just went for the one that had the ‘meat’ character in it “肉“. It turned out to be sooo yummy! Not of that icky Chinese sausage nonsense! It had sticky rice (what it’s mainly made of), a bean of some sort, and beef, methinks. I wanted to go back for more! It was only about 1.40 Yuan, so 0.20 USD. I can seriously stock up on those~
Anywhizzles, after some downtime, I took Carly, Ryan, and Naomi to Qipu lu by taxi. We went to one of the stores and didn’t really get to look around that much because Ryan suggested that we meet every 45 minutes. The place is HUGE and crowded and like a maze, so I didn’t understand why we had to keep meeting. I saw another store with the shirts I wanted but they wouldn’t go down much. I think the next time I see a store like that, I’ll just risk paying “too much” and load up on them. Why? Because there are shirts that fit my decidedly large American frame (lengthwise and bust wise, heehee). I really do like the designs on those shirts. And the matching purses~~~I’m generally not a purse fiend, but they kind of remind me of the cute purse I got in Zhengzhou (with the help of Christa’s persuasion :D ).
As I said, we really didn’t get far. We only went into the first floor-ish of two buildings so we have much more exploring to do. There are also Mario shirts floating about! I want them~! I guess I have to go shopping in the guy’s section because I know those will fit me. If not, then that’s just…sad.
UGH. I REALLY want those shirts (and purse)! Mingyali, I think is the name brand. I’m also not a brand girl, but when I know I can’t find something in my home country, I like to stock up :P Oh well. BUDDHISM SAYS BE DETACHED. So I will. I did buy a black skirt for 35远, so 5USD. That’s the price I set it at, but after a few seconds, I thought “I genuinely don’t want this anymore”. I started walking away and they called me back twice, the second time with the price I set :/ Maybe I can give the skirt away? Haha. I need that type of nonchalance with my shirts! ARGHA.
We get back to the dorm around 7pm or so and I stay in for dinner. I’m trying to stay hydrated. I’m also not sick yet! It’s been about a week, so I’m being really conscious of my health. I’m drinking water and taking a multivitamin. Carly has a cold of some sort. She’s been feeling kind of miserable and I know that feeling a little too well. *The last time I had a cold was the DAY BEFORE my Chinese final at Tech. It was hell.*
Same ol’ same ol’ settling in to bed after that. I’ve gained the habit of leaving the door open so people generally walk in. I’m talking to a lot more of the program mates this time around, and *most* of them are really cool. I like that we’re comfortable enough with each other to just leave our doors open. People also know I’ve been on this trip before so they sometimes come in asking for advice about this or that. They’ll even swing by (as do I to their rooms) to ask if we want to all eat together or something J I really like it and this is someone who values her alone time. Ah well :O
Oh yes, I believe I called by dad for the second time today. It was good to hear his voice :) I missed cooking today because I’m usually cooking on some Chinese holiday or another. Ah well, again.
还有, the Chinese really like Lady Gaga, apparently. I kept hearing her songs in the bargain market.
Oh yeah, and I just realized...if you see a random "J", that's supposed to be a smiley face emoticon. It was when I typed it on Word, but I guess it didn't translate well :(
在上海...All over the place
6/15/2010
Class as usual :O I got a 105 on my first quiz. I knew most of the words already, though :P I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned it before, but the class seems a LOT more lax than last year’s. We only study 8-9 characters at a time (at least a few of them I know already) and get tested on a random five. That’s a far cry from an entire lesson’s amount of vocab a day and being tested on a random five by writing it on the board in front of class D: I sort of wish the professors were going a bit quicker. It seems that at this pace we won’t be anywhere near the end of the book within four weeks L People are kind of all over the place when it comes to the advanced level of Chinese. Some of them know mostly pinyin with knowledge of few characters, one guy knows the traditional 汉字 but not simplified. Another girl can speak and hear fluently but can’t read or write characters. We’re a medley language learning, haha.
Around 1:30pm we head to the CPC site where the first Communist Party conference was held. I’ve been there already so I went through at a brisk walk. The New World place, though…WOW. That art district type thing we went to has been totally turned around! If that’s the same place we went to last summer, it’s been given a total facelift. There are SO many restaurants now. Like, high end restaurants for business people and stuff. We saw a Coldstone’s that sold ice cream for 80 Yuan (11USD) a pop L. Dr. Meng told us that this is where business people come to take their business partners and stuffs. I say take them to the arcade :D I think there was also a Hong Kong festival of some sort. Too expensive, so I didn’t take entirely too much interest.
We went to Nanjing Rd. next, but Carly and I went to the bargain market a few blocks down. We didn’t come away with anything, but I did see those shirts with the girl’s faces that I really like…with matching purses! They were too pricey and wouldn’t go down so I left L But it was a WHOLE store with them! I could seriously blow a lot of cash there, but the vendors can’t know that I want it D: We decided to come back later because we had to meet up with the group. We took a different way back so we just looked for the crab claw building. On the way we took the “back roads” and I stopped when I saw this bakery. We bought this AWESOME cake (I took a picture) for only 4 Yuan ( 0.58 USD heehee). We walked to the big mall on Nanjing and sat in their food court to eat.
After we returned we just settled in and eventually went to sleep. Other group members went to a club. I don’t remember the name. I think it had the word “Ice” in it. All I know is that interesting things went down and I saw some pictures that one person managed to take. Nothing incriminating, but something funny to look at in hindsight.
Class as usual :O I got a 105 on my first quiz. I knew most of the words already, though :P I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned it before, but the class seems a LOT more lax than last year’s. We only study 8-9 characters at a time (at least a few of them I know already) and get tested on a random five. That’s a far cry from an entire lesson’s amount of vocab a day and being tested on a random five by writing it on the board in front of class D: I sort of wish the professors were going a bit quicker. It seems that at this pace we won’t be anywhere near the end of the book within four weeks L People are kind of all over the place when it comes to the advanced level of Chinese. Some of them know mostly pinyin with knowledge of few characters, one guy knows the traditional 汉字 but not simplified. Another girl can speak and hear fluently but can’t read or write characters. We’re a medley language learning, haha.
Around 1:30pm we head to the CPC site where the first Communist Party conference was held. I’ve been there already so I went through at a brisk walk. The New World place, though…WOW. That art district type thing we went to has been totally turned around! If that’s the same place we went to last summer, it’s been given a total facelift. There are SO many restaurants now. Like, high end restaurants for business people and stuff. We saw a Coldstone’s that sold ice cream for 80 Yuan (11USD) a pop L. Dr. Meng told us that this is where business people come to take their business partners and stuffs. I say take them to the arcade :D I think there was also a Hong Kong festival of some sort. Too expensive, so I didn’t take entirely too much interest.
We went to Nanjing Rd. next, but Carly and I went to the bargain market a few blocks down. We didn’t come away with anything, but I did see those shirts with the girl’s faces that I really like…with matching purses! They were too pricey and wouldn’t go down so I left L But it was a WHOLE store with them! I could seriously blow a lot of cash there, but the vendors can’t know that I want it D: We decided to come back later because we had to meet up with the group. We took a different way back so we just looked for the crab claw building. On the way we took the “back roads” and I stopped when I saw this bakery. We bought this AWESOME cake (I took a picture) for only 4 Yuan ( 0.58 USD heehee). We walked to the big mall on Nanjing and sat in their food court to eat.
After we returned we just settled in and eventually went to sleep. Other group members went to a club. I don’t remember the name. I think it had the word “Ice” in it. All I know is that interesting things went down and I saw some pictures that one person managed to take. Nothing incriminating, but something funny to look at in hindsight.
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