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
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