Is School Over Yet?

*Warning* This journal entry may contain explicit female content which men and minors probably do not want to read about.

Busy weekend in Nanchang.

Headed down to Nanchang on Friday, finally making it in the late afternoon due to a one hour delayed train. Grrrrr. Nathan and I went to a cafe for drinks and a snack while waiting for 5pm to roll around so we could join Nik, Cici, and Stewart for dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant.
The food was pretty good and MSG free. Cici ordered 'drunk shrimp' which are live shrimp that they bring out in this bowl, then pour an alcoholic sauce on them which makes the shrimp drunk. You then eat them ALIVE. Needless to say, I didn't try one, but Nathan and Cici seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.

We headed to Stewarts bar after that for a fun evening there. Pearl joined us later and she, Graham, Nik, and James all played poker into the wee morning hours. I was exhausted after awhile so Nate, Nik, and I headed back out to their campus.

Nik and Nathan left early (6am-ish) for Shanghai for their 'boys weekend'. I got up about an hour later to catch the bus to meet Cici in town. She picked me up from the bus stop and we headed to the hospital. Why, Jessica, did you need to go to the hospital, you are asking. Well, dear readers, while doing my monthly womanly booby check I chanced upon two lumps which gave me a bit of a scare. I decided to head to the women's hospital to have them checked out so I could quell my fears. The hospital was actually quite nice and because I was a laowai I was sort of rushed through the lines of girls. The doctors asked me a few questions (translated by Cici), then I had an exam given by a female doctor, then was sent off for a blood test, a mamogram, and a sonogram. The mamogram hurt like a b*tch, but they let me keep the pictures, so now I can see what the inside of my boobs look like whenever I want. The sonogram went well, and the blood test wasn't no thing. The conclusion? I have hyperplasia and do not need surgery. I am on a number of medications to increase my estrogen levels or something along those lines for the next three months which should decrease the size of the lumps. I have to go back for a checkup in 6 months but they think that it should be just fine. Whew.
However, due to the medication I can no longer drink tea for the next three months. Drat.
How much did all these medical procedures set me back? Less than 600rmb. That's right, that which would cost thousands of dollars in the states only set me back about 95 dollars.

After that relieving hospital visit Cici and I headed downtown to get some lunch, sushi, at a really nice Japanese restaurant. It was sooo good. Slightly more pricey than my usual sushi place in Nanchang, but well worth it.

We went shopping afterward and even found a store that does copies of the outfits from Gossip Girl. Sweet. Didn't buy anything this time around but I definitely have my eye on the white dress that Blair wore to the white party.
We finished shopping and headed to Cici's house where I met her parents. They looked so young! She packed a bag, we picked up some students, and headed out to Nanchang Agricultural University so that the students could get ready for a speech competition. We finally got a hotel room after a bit of arguing and decided to veg out for awhile. Cici had a meeting so I watched a movie until she returned, then we headed to dinner.
The Agriculture university campus is gorgeous and amazing! They had all these restaurants with tables set up outdoors so we found one that looked good and sat down. Ordered a couple beers, some eggplant and greenbeans, fried squid, and chicken. Delicious dinner. We walked around the shops out there then checked in on this cool little snack street they had. I am smitten with that campus! They even have a forest!
We were pretty exhausted from the day so we crashed around 2am.



The next morning I had to leave relatively early to meet Pearl. I said bye to Cici and caught the bus into town, then a taxi to the campus. I dropped off my bags in Pearl's apartment and we headed to lunch at Le Bistro. Shrimp spaghetti, a raspberry vodka fizz, and cheesecake later, we were stuffed. We decided to walk off our meal under the hot sun of Nanchang and find a Tibetan store that Pearl knew about. We finally located it, and had a fun time perusing the goods. We caught a cab back to her apartment. We didn't get to a reiki session but I did get some tarot cards to practice with and some meditation stuff. I guess I need to practice a bit on my own first.
I headed home in the evening and arrived in Jiujiang after dark. Caught a cab home, made up my lesson plan, and passed out.

Happy belated Mother's Day!

School let's out June 20th. WOOO!