El Nido

Hello folks,

This is a quick post as I have plane tickets to purchase, Bank of America to call AGAIN (they are taking $5 a month from my account for no reason, AGAIN, I'm shutting this crap down when I get back to the states), and packing to do.

Just wanted to say El Nido and our entire trip to the Philippines has been amazing. You can see all the pictures here. Nathan and I are happily engaged now and getting excited for Hawaii next year!

I am happy to be finished studying. I don't think I would ever study at BLCU again, but the teachers are really fantastic there. I wish the program had been more like USAC, but oh well.

Right, I have to get going!
Love!

Playing Catch Up....

Okay, lots of things have happened since I last posted, so I'm not sure I'll be able to remember everything. Let's see...

A couple Thursdays ago my classmates and I went out for duck and to see the Beijing Opera. We thought maybe we would be able to find a place that had both a place to eat and watch, but we were definitely mistaken. We ended up on the super touristy 'old style' street which was showing opera on a rooftop to watch from the street. The speakers were pretty busted so the sound was not good. After about 5 minutes we decided to bail and find a duck restaurant. We ended up at Quanjude. We had headed out from Wudaokou with about 16 people but as the night wore on and we finally arrived at the duck restaurant we were down to 12. I ended up ordering for us, 3 ducks, rice, dumplings, and a vegetable dish. Of course all the food except the ducks had MSG and the idiot waitress wouldn't or didn't tell them to prepare it without (which makes me think the food is probably pre-made). The bill ended up being a whopping 1,276rmb. Luckily split between the 12 of us it wasn't too bad. We did a few ganbei's, enjoyed our duck and headed back out to the touristy street.
A few more people decided to head home leaving Thai Patrick, Patrick, Anna, Sylvio, and I. We went to the area of the tourist street where you can buy live scorpions to eat and one of the cooks let Thai Patrick play with one, we have some good pictures of him pretending to eat it. We decided to leave around 11pm but couldn't find a cab who was willing to take all 5 of us without charging an exorbitant (80rmb!) amount, so we took the subway to Xizhimen before it closed down and grabbed a cab from there. It was a fun night and I really got to know my classmates which was cool.

Nathan is back from his trip to the states which is great. We had a lot of fun going to the zoo last Saturday and seeing all the animals. They could really do with Hayley's help there as some of the enclosures where a bit horrible. The people could also do with a bit of educating as to how to treat the animals, we had to tell one girl who was our age to stop banging on the monkeys glass windows and pissing them off.

Nathan and I found a huge underground market in Xizhimen which I absolutely love. They are very few foreigners there and they don't try to rip you off. The first price they give you is usually very low so you don't spend forever bargaining. It's good stuff. I went back on Friday and nabbed a pair of jeans and a few other things.

Today Nathan and I went for brunch at Steak and Eggs, explored the Alien Street Market in little Russia, and went to The Place mall. It was all very good stuff, but probably more shopping than Nathan liked. Haha.

Classes continue to go well, I'm really glad I'm in the class I'm in and I've learned a lot of new vocabulary. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up the studying when I get back to Jiujiang.

Tomorrow Nathan and I are going to the travel agents to check out Manila tickets. Only two and a half more weeks! I'm looking forward to our nice relaxing vacation and some time with Nate's parents!

Success

Yesterday I decided that I was in need of some shopping therapy seeing as I'm not doing so well with making friends here in Beijing (blah...).

Having never ridden the subway by myself that was my first objective. Luckily Nathan and I had made the trip to Sanlitun via subway before, and I remembered the way. I made it to my goal rather quickly.
Next stop was the underground market where I met some really nice people. I bought another Coach purse, so Aunt Karen can pick from the two. I met a couple of super nice ladies who sell stuff down there, and I actually wouldn't mind going back just to chat with them. Their English was really great and I am betting they would let me practice my Chinese.
After the underground market I headed over to Yashow to grab another pair of shoes (I really wanted rainboots due to the fact that Beijing monsoons in the summer) but couldn't find any I liked. I did find a gorgeous jacket and very nearly had a shouting war with the lady who was selling it, but I was triumphant and left with one new pair of flats and a pink leather jacket.
I walked back to the subway and returned to Wudaokou where I was delighted to find a night market set up on the street. I did some bargain hunting and came away with a 15rmb pair of Crocs (aka the ugliest but most comfortable shoes in existence), a light cardigan, and a new shirt. Excellent.

I won't tell you how much I spent yesterday. It was exorbitant, but totally within my budget.

Does anyone want a pair of Crocs? They're only 15rmb a pair so I would be happy to snag you a pair and deliver in January. Just send me your shoe size.

Today I'm dedicating my afternoon to studying and reviewing. We've learned a lot of words in the past week!

Purchases from yesterday:
Pink Coach bag
Crocs
Le Sportsac Bag with birds on it
Pink leather jacket
Two pairs of shorts
One skirt
Four shirts

Plans for the week:
Beijing zoo...?
Studying
Laundry (for some reason I can't buy a laundry card from the desk until tomorrow?)
Nathan comes back
Make friends...?

I live....

I am quite sure I had a kidney stone but it has passed. Nathan made me an oh so delicious remedy of olive oil an lemon juice. Ew. But whatever, I am cured.

Classes are going great. I am in the perfect level class for my Chinese so I am being challenged but still learning.

Hrm. I have nothing else. Update later.

Bad Luck Streak

I seem to be a on a bad luck streak at the moment.

Last night and today I was so incredibly sick I had to miss the first day of class. It was awful, it still is awful. I'm not sure if I have food poisoning or what, but my stomach is very unhappy.

I managed to make it to class to meet my teacher and tell her (in Chinese) how very ill I was. She seemed to understand and let me leave. I am now with Nathan who is taking care of me. Hopefully I'll start to feel better soon, although I really wish I knew what was wrong.

It seems that our class will be conducted entirely in Chinese which means I have some studying to do this weekend. While I was in class there were three other boys in there and one other girl. I wish I could have stayed to see how everything would go, but man, I felt awful.

Here's hoping Monday works out. Blah.

Hooray for a proxy

Okay, this will have to be quick as I don't know how long I have before this proxy kicks me off or my internet disappears. I am in the hotel on the Beijing Language and Culture University and the internet is not very reliable.

Beijing has been a blast the past few days, I've really enjoyed myself. I wrote up a couple of journal entries which I will be sure to post up on here at some point. Look for them later.

Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare. Nathan and I arrived at BLCU to meet Ella who is the Wentao of Real World Chinese. Only... she wasn't there to meet us. And she doesn't speak English at all. Uhhhh....
Anyways, after a few minutes (half hour) of trying to find her to meet up, an American student also on the program took the phone, figured out where we were, and brought Ella to meet us. This was all fine and well until she gave us a list of things we had to do that day; find the dorms, register with the police, register with the school, etc. Errr. Then she told us she wouldn't be coming with us. What?
She took us to the housing office and got me registered there, then gave me a map and sent us packing. Victor Zhang, the program coordinator (located in Canada) had told me I was going to live in building number 6. So Nathan and I trooped over there (poor Nathan had my very heavy suitcase the entire time) only to find out that I was not in building 6 after all, but in building 4 where we had just been. So we went to building 4 and this is where the real drama began.

We found the front desk and I attempted to check in. Only, I have a resident visa seeing as I live here and all, which the program knew ahead of time however didn't inform the dormitories. The dorms are for students only and apparently to live there you have to have a student visa. Which I dont'. After much back and forth between Nathan and the front desk staff, Ella was called in. She, of course, wasn't informed of my visa situation.
Hohum.
The only solution was for me to move into the hotel. They wanted another $800. Wtf, no. I told them that either they paid for the hotel since it was their mistake or I would like a complete and total refund of all the program fees. They paid the hotel fees and here I am.
In retrospect it doesn't look like we went through much, but trust me, it was an incredibly tense and stressful situation. Thank God Nathan was there or I would have been utterly screwed since Ella does not speak English whatsoever. Thank you, Nathan!

This morning I took my placement exam and was put in the class I wanted. The tester was a bit scary, a man who just yelled (only in China they just call it talking). I held my own reasonably well, but he told me I needed to study chapters 1-10 of a book he didn't give me tonight. Haha. I guess we'll see how that goes. Classes begin tomorrow and I am quite thankful that we'll only have one day before the weekend. I think it's going to be exhausting.

Right, that's all for now. Nathan is meeting me for lunch. Sorry if this one is a bit sporatic and poorly written, that's how it goes when you're a 'busy' student.

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!

Frack, I am tired.

So... classes today.

......

The 8am kids were alright. Not the best, but they did the work. My 10am class makes me want to rip my hair out. I actually had to say to them, "This is oral English class. If you do not even attempt to open your mouth to speak English I will FAIL YOU!" (Insert appropriate swear words here.) It's just such a shame because I have about ten really great speakers in there, and the rest of them just..... don't care, don't try, don't want to be in class.
Gaaaaaaaah. Semester must end now.

Had a good afternoon though. I rented a bike from the school then Cary and I biked out to Jiujiang University. The campus is gorgeous! It backs up to Lushan and there isn't too much around them except the campus. Saw a ton of the Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani students, but they were too busy playing cricket to take much notice of us. Ran into Stan the man. Cary and I will probably check out the bars out there sometime in an effort to run into more of the other foreigners. They have a lot of grates out there and when I went over one too fast my water bottle flew out of the basket on the front of the bike, over my shoulder, and I ran over it with the back tire. Oops. Pretty spectacular move though. I think I will buy a bike... although it only cost 2 yuan to rent one for a couple hours, not shabby. Now I can say I've survived a bike ride through the mean streets of Jiujiang. Score.

Nathan is having a 'boys weekend' this weekend in Shanghai, but my friend Cici will be in Nanchang so I'm going to go stay with her. We're spending the night at the Agriculture University for some reason, so I'm hoping to meet the foreign teachers there. Then on Sunday I'm meeting with Pearl to have a Reiki lesson. Pretty neat. Home on Sunday night, must plan my lesson tomorrow so it's all set for Monday so I needn't worry about it this weekend.

I finished my first water color experiment, however the pictures I've been taking of it are muting the colors, so I shall try again tomorrow and post pictures later. It's... eh, okay I guess. A pretty fun experiment to see how these water colors work.

Over and out.

Sanqingshan

Look! Look! I'm updating!

Thursday evening I trained out to Nanchang, not getting there until around 10pm. Nathan met me at the train station and we headed to his place, I was beat and wanted an early-ish night.

On Friday we woke up around 5:30am, got ready, and headed to the train station to catch our train which departed at 8am. We found a reasonable mien bao che driver, picked up a few more passengers along the way, and were dropped at the station with plenty of time to spare. We were on the express train which is quite posh, so it was a very comfortable and fairly short ride. The city that our train dropped us off in is still a fair distance from the mountain, so we found another mien bao che driver to drive us to the mountain for a reasonable price.
The drive was gorgeous as we made our way through mountains, countryside, and along lakes. The drive itself took about and hour and a half to two hours, not too shabby. Our driver dropped us at the north-eastern side of the mountain where we decided to catch the cable car up instead of walking along the road trying to find the stairs. It was around 12:30pm then, and the light wouldn't last too many more hours.
The cable car ride was pleasant and short, dropping us off near the Goddess Rock. We slowly made our way up and down many stairs, weaving along narrow pathways, until we came to Sun-Rising Mountain Villa. We were disappointed to discover they had no rooms, mostly because we were tired from getting up so early and for hiking with our backpacksfor so long. After a couple trips up and down some of the paths we found a hotel, the Heaven Gate Mountain Villa. We were wiped and crashed early.

On Saturday we abandoned the bags in our hotel room and made our way back up to the Sun-Rising Mountain Villa. After talking to one of the porters we decided to take the path leading west, and also what turned out to be the longest way. However, the views were breathtaking and we were spit out at a nice lake and the Sanqing Temple. After looking around that area for awhile, we decided to head for Yujing Peak and along a different path which would take us back to the Sun-Rising Mountain Villa. Despite my protesting legs, Nathan and I climbed to the top of Yujing Peak, a whopping 1819.9 meters tall. Unfortunately a thick mist and rain had settled over us, so the views were mostly of the gray clouds that surrounded us.
We headed down from the peak and back along the alternate pathway where we discovered a great bridge and a place where there were glass tile so you could look down at the drop, eventually ending up back at the SRMV. We were both soaked from the rain, tired from the climb (stairs) and hungry. At the hotel we made instant curries, took hot showers, and collapsed into bed, falling asleep around 8pm.

Sunday morning we departed the hotel around noon, carrying our backpacks. We were ready to go home. We took the cable car down the mountain, found the bus, and hopped on. It was a two hour ride to the bus station, then a half hour taxi ride to the train station which we arrived at with plenty of time left to get snacks and relax before catching the train.
We arrived in Nanchang around 9pm. Cary managed to find us at the station, so he and I got tickets back to Jiujiang together. Nathan headed off to meet Nick so they could share a cab ride back to their campus together, while Cary and I went to McDonalds for some dinner. Cary and I caught our train and spent the ride playing Cribbage. I still don't quite get it.
I finished up my lesson plan around midnight-thirty and crashed into bed by 1am.

Today my kids were great! I made up a lesson plan where I spoke as little as possible and they spoke as much as possible, and it went amazingly well. The 10am class was a little painful, and most of the boys in the 2:30pm class didn't do their homework (to punish them I made them stand up and come sit in the front of the class, which actually forced them to participate). This is a good lesson, but kind of tiring for me since I have to stand up there like a cheerleader trying to get them to talk. It takes about half an hour, but they do open up eventually. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Pictures for Sanqingshan can be see here.

Not much to say...

There isn't much going on here at the moment. We have Friday off due to a workers holiday, so Nathan and I will be spending the weekend climbing Sanquingshan. I'm pretty excited, but I know I'm going to come back super sore. It's pretty on par with Huangshan, so I know the views will be spectacular.

Aaaaaaaand, that's all. Sorry. I wish I had more interesting news to report on.

Folks in America, don't get swine flu.

Well then...

Okay, I've figured out what I want to do. I'm definitely going to work on/start a magazine. I've already started to figure out the content, my customer base, who to sell ad space to, etc.
I would like to find an internship in Beijing this summer for a magazine if I can. I may have to wait to find that until I can get to the city though.

I need to buy Adobe Pagemaker, Adobe Photoshop, an external hard drive, and a Nikon D4.
I've figured out that a 160G external HD will be about 420 yuan, a Nikon D4 will be around 3500 yuan, and the Adobe Pagemaker and Photoshop I can get for about 10 yuan each at this dvd place I know. Haha.

I may give private English lessons this summer while I'm in Beijing so that I can save up for these items. Not sure about that until I get my courseload. May be too busy studying the Chinese.

Summer school is all paid for, I got the reciept in my inbox a few hours ago. Glad that's taken care of, it's really a load off. I used my paypal and wiped out my checking account, so now I'm left with about $40 in there and all that RMB I have saved in my secret hiding spot. I ended up having to pay an extra $54 to use the paypal, but I found out it would have been almost 500rmb to transfer that much in RMB if I had opened a Chinese bank account. I figure the $54 is worth it.

I found Bank of America being shady with my savings account today. I was checking to make sure I had the funds to pay all of my tuition with my checking account when I noticed that there was money missing from my savings account. In order to keep Bank of America from charging a 'bank maintanance fee' I have to retain a balance of $300 in my savings account. Well, after I got my nice tax return from the government, I made sure that the balance in my savings was exactly $300 so Bank of America would stop charging me. Today when I checked the balance it was at $292. For some unexplained reason there was a $3 'bank fee' and because that brought the balance down to $297, they had charged the $5 'bank maintance fee'. What the hell? I got on the customer service chat thing that they provide so I could chat with a representative. When I asked what that $3 fee was for I got this message, "I've got some good news for you! Because we value your customer loyalty I can reimburse those fees to you. All of it should be credited back to your account in the next business day." She wouldn't answer me when I asked why they had charged the $3 fee. I know, I just know, it was so that they could bring the balance to below $300 and have an excuse to charge me that $5. If you have a Bank of America account, keep an eye out for that stuff. I'm thinking of shutting down my Bank of America savings account when I return to the states. There have been a few strange incidents like that, and I don't trust them anymore.

That's all from me. Laundry to do, then sleepy time. I should really tidy up the house, but I'm having too much fun with my magazine project. Whee!

My China Career Goals...

Some of these are serious, some are just for fun (but I wouldn't pass on them if they came up):

• Be a model for the home shopping network
• Be a regular on a Chinese soap opera
• Work for a magazine in Beijing or Shanghai, preferably Elle or one of those types
• Club promoter
• Own a bar or club
• Own a restaurant
• Front Desk manager at a hotel in Beijing or Shanghai
• Write a book or two

I've pondered grad school recently. I could easily slip off to Korea for a year, earn the money, and return to China. However, I have also realized I have NO IDEA what I want to be when I 'grow up', so I guess grad school should probably wait until I figure that out.

Teaching is not my future. I need to figure something else out.

Crap Weather

Nathan and I didn't do much today, but yesterday was pretty okay.

We woke up late yesterday, got ready, and dinnered at David's pizza place. His dad wasn't there, but it was sooooo nice to have pizza after all this time. We walked around downtown despite the rainy weather and found some shops I didn't know existed. I found a few gorgeous LV purses I plan to go take a look at again tomorrow or Tuesday. They're too lovely to pass up! Haha.
On our walk back towards the school we passed this lit up building on the lake and went to have a look. It turned out to be a nice little area where you can drink tea and watch a show for 15rmb each. We bought tickets and spent about an hour enjoying the nice outdoor atmosphere and music. It started raining harder while we were there so we cabbed home.

I'm teaching interviews this week because I can't get karaoke videos since youtube is STILL BLOCKED! BAH!

Nathan and I are going to San Qing Shan for our may holiday, I think it will be lovely.

Here is my hair, I hate it:

I'll probably like it in a couple week when it's a bit longer.

Things I did today...

• Taught a class about American universities.
• Got my hairz chopped the heck off. Pictures later when I am not so sleepy/having a bad skin day.
• Ate baozi.
• Watched a singing competition.
• Came up with the idea to have a karaoke class next week since my students are willing to sing but not to speak in class....?
• Bought a Japanese fashion magazine.
  
• Bookmarked all the clothes I want to have made in my various Elle and other fashion mags.

That's all.

Tomorrow... more of the same.

Edit:// So when Mom was here, on our way to catch the train to Nanchang I had to run through the train station with no shoes on. I got a small cut on the bottom of my foot, but I got it all cleaned up and band aid-ed. Well, all this time later it still hadn't healed and was somewhat sore... so I decided to get a pair of tweezers out and have a dig around in there... I just pulled a rather large piece of glass out of the bottom of my foot that had been in there this whole time. D'oh. Guess it'll heal now.

Cool

So, this was an interesting day full of Chinese language triumphs.

Nathan wasn't feeling well so I took the bus downtown by myself to catch the train. I got off after a few stops and hailed a cab, because I wasn't entirely sure which stop was near the bus station. The driver was an interesting fellow who definitely thought he was a race car driver.

I made it to the train station very quickly and headed in to buy my ticket. I've never bought one by myself in Nanchang, but I didn't have a problem at all. Ticket in hand I made my way to the waiting room, which was baking hot. I'm not a fan of Nanchang train station.
While heading to board the train a young man came up and tapped my shoulder stating that, "We have the same ticket." I just nodded as he waved his in my face, and we boarded the train together and found seats. We chatted for awhile but he left me in relative peace. I'm pretty sure he spent a majority of the train ride attempting to think up questions he could ask me. Bless.

I 'yo bailed' as quickly as possible after the train station and found myself a cab (the trick to avoiding the cabs who cheat you is to grab one just as they're dropping someone off near the entrance of the train station.) This cab driver was very talkative and even after I told him I didn't understand half the things he was saying we still managed to have a good conversation.

The best news of the day?! I got my acceptance letter to BLCU!!!! Now I just have to send them my monies by June 1st, so I guess I'll get a Chinese bank account all set up and rolling since I have the money now. May as well get it to them... although I may wait to see if Nathan and I can get an apartment together for the summer first.

Right, I'm wiped. Off to unpack and eat.

Wiped

I am wiped the hell out. My students are exhausting and I've got a cold and I have been going to bed too late.

Today Cary made pizza and let me eat a lot of it. Apparently I have a rather gregarious appetite. Super. But it was really good and I haven't had pizza in quite awhile.

I've spent my evening looking up bad words in Chinese.

I taught my kids the F-word in class. They already knew it.

I'm going to Nanchang this weekend.

These journals entries are getting more and more bland. Maybe I'll have something interesting to write after this week. I'm having a 'girly' day with my friend Cici on Saturday, so that will probably provide a few antics to write about.

Until then, Happy Easter!

Nada

Not much to say.

Kids were awful today. No one was in the mood to learn and we all wanted to just be outside where it was a gorgeous, warm day.

Went shopping at Walmart and saw some Bangladeshi's. They pointedly ignored me. Nice.

Played badminton with Cary for about an hour until some punk ass little brat Chinese kids started harassing us by yelling 'hello' and other things then throwing rocks.

Studying Chinese now.

The end.

Wuhan 2.0

So... Friday afternoon I headed down to Nanchang. I rode the train with Sophie and some of her friends. It was packed! When I arrived Nathan greeted me at the station and we headed off to Metro to pick up some groceries for a curry night.
Nathan cooked curry which was delicious! He's a superb chef. Pearl joined us for dinner and we had a nice chat while watching Anthony Bourdain.

Saturday morning we woke up early-ish and Nathan made pancakes. Fei Fei joined us and got to try her first pancake. We, (Nathan, Nikolai, FeiFei, and I) headed to the train station to catch the train to Wuchang (one of the Wuhan burroughs). The train ride was pretty quick, three hours or so. One of Nathan's students had recommended a hotel which turned out to be excellent, located only a few minutes from the train station and right on a night market street. It was a steal at only 100rmb a night. We checked into this great hotel, dropped off our bags, and headed to food street, we were all hungry. It was packed! We all ordered food from different stalls, and I managed to order noodles by myself sans MSG.
We decided to go back to the hotel for a bit then it was time to hit the bars. We had a cab take us to a bar street near Wuhan University and found one that was suitable to play a few dice drinking games at until we were ready to go to a club. Eventually we tired of the bar and headed to a club that was down the street. We were ushered to a table by an incredibly nice manager and along with the bottle of vodka we ordered, given a free bowl of fruit, french fries, and cucumber. It was fantastic. The music was okay, and we had some fun times dancing around. There was a group of French people, the only other laowai, who were polite and came over to introduce and offer us drinks. After a few hours of dancing, drinking, and socializing we were beat. We left the club and found a late night restaurant where Nik, FeiFei, and Nathan all enjoyed a various assortment of food such as snail and a whole duck (which Nathan ate by himself.) We went back to the hotel after that.

Sunday we had a lot of things planned. We rose pretty early considering how late we were out and headed to the Yellow Crane Tower. It was a beautiful day and we had a great view from the top of the tower. Nathan and I enjoyed walking the grounds and I found a great deal on some antique looking silk paintings, 3 for 20rmb. I am eager to get them framed now for when Nathan and I have a house together again. After walking the grounds we decided to go to Wuhan University to poke around the campus. It's a beautiful campus and I enjoyed seeing the grounds. We eventually found our way to the large lake (East/West Lake?) and walked onto the narrow docks. Poor FeiFei doesn't know how to swim so that made her a bit nervous.
It took us ages to get a cab near the university but we eventually managed it. We had the driver take us to the ferry, then caught the ferry to the other side of the river and another of Wuhan's burroughs. We grabbed dinner there, but I think there was a bit of MSG tainting our food and I didn't feel so well afterward. We decided to head back to the hotel and passed out.

This morning we got up early and headed to the train station. Because I was going to Jiujiang and Nik, Nate, and FeiFei were heading to Nanchang, I had to sit in a different part of the train. I said goodbye to Nathan in Wuhan. The train was packed, I spent most of the time reading and napping.
I found a nice cab driver once I got to Jiujiang, and now I am home. This week I'm teaching my kids slang, and I've had a good time looking up words to teach them. I am eager to see the dialogues they come up with.
Tomorrow I have plans to play badminton/frisbee with Cary and some friends. I am also going to meet up with David's cousin, Kevin, to hang out this week and I have arranged to see Jiujiang University campus with Qiao who is seeing if they offer Chinese classes there for me. Busy week!

Montezuma's Revenge....

I should think of a Chinese name for this.... Confucian's Revenge...?

I was very unwell in a very unpleasant way this morning. To the point that after two trips to the toilet during class (luckily I had short vids associated with my lesson that I could show during my bathroom breaks) I canceled the rest of class, canceled my next class, and walked home.

Ew.

However, I have strangely not been 'sick' since getting home. And I haven't actually felt that ill. My body is whacked.
I will take a couple pepto's before bed though, just in case.

Today was April Fool's Day, and for some reason the people in this country view this as a major holiday, or at least think it's one in the western world. I have received a number of texts telling me to have a 'Happy Fool's Day'. Right.

I'm off to read. Happy Fool's Day to you.

Well that's that then...

Another stellar weekend down, only a few more to go until summer vacation bliss (except I will be in school for a majority of my vacation).

Nathan and I are thinking about renting an apartment instead of me staying in the dorms and him doing whatever. I would actually save money since I'm paying $800 for 6 weeks and I know for a fact I can get an apartment for cheaper than that. I would just need to purchase a bike for getting to/from classes. We're thinking of taking a trip to Beijing during our May holiday to scope out places and all that.

Next Monday we have off, so Nathan and I shall probably take a short trip either to Wuhan or Changsha. Not sure where yet. It will be nice to explore another area though.

This week I'm working on pronunciation in my classes. Today my 2:30pm class might as well have all been sleeping, they were truly out of it. I made them get up and do exercises until they woke up. I ended up dismissing them early because I think we all just wanted to be out of class.

I'm off to read/nap/do laundry/clean.