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.

Real World Chinese

I'm still waiting to hear back from BLCU, although the program adviser said it would be a couple weeks until I heard from them... so maybe this time next week?

In the meantime, I thought I would post some information about the program.

I will be in class between 4 and 6 hours a day. If I take the intensive class, which I'm planning on, I will be in class 6 hours a day. The extra two hours for the intensive program are one-on-one tutoring, how super is that?

I'm going back to the beginner class since my character writing is not very strong and I think it will be good to review the basics.

Textbooks are included in the $1200 program fee. There are no additional fees (besides my own personal spending and $800 for housing).

In order to ensure your Mandarin skills are developed in the best possible way, the classes have been divided into the five key language developing areas: reading, writing, listening, speaking (oral), and grammar.

Reading: Classes will focus on building vocabulary and strengthening reading comprehension, with a focus on accuracy and speed.

Writing: Classes will introduce and develop the composition of characters and stroke orders of radicals, or bushou.

Listening: Classes will focus on improving listening comprehension of spoken Mandarin at regular speed. At the beginner level the primary focus will be understanding basic facts; at the advanced level the primary focus will be developing implicit comprehension and drawing inferences from complicated passages.

Speaking (Oral): Classes will facilitate the development of proper pronunciation and intonation, and will help students recognize common stress patterns in Mandarin.

Grammar: Classes will introduce and develop proper sentence structure, word order, spelling and colloquial expressions.

After school there is complimentary tutoring and a partnered language exchange.

They also have free electives, whee!

Language: Chinese Character Writing and Chinese Song Classes

Chinese Character Writing: A supplementary class to writing classes. Focus is on further development of characters and the radical system.

Chinese Song Classes: An introduction to both traditional folk and modern (pop) Chinese songs. Lyrics are written in both pinyin (Romanized letters) and hanzi (Chinese characters) in order to further strengthen reading and speaking skills.

Non-Language: Chinese Painting, Calligraphy, Traditional Chinese Massage and Medicine, and Taiji Quan (Tai Chi)

Chinese Painting: An introduction to one of the most popular traditional Chinese painting techniques - water colour painting, taught by a professional artist.

Calligraphy: An introduction to the ancient and sublime art form of Chinese calligraphy. Learn the eight styles, how to hold the brush, and the proper order of strokes. Students will select one style and develop their skills.

Traditional Chinese Massage and Medicine: An introduction to the ancient Chinese view of the human body and the causes of illness. Remedial techniques will include herbal medicine and massage.

Taiji Quan (Tai Chi): An introduction to the softer and more fluid martial arts, with a focus on internal power to improve health and wellness, both physically and mentally.

Aaaaaaand, they even have social activities set up, along with a welcome lunch:

• The Peking Duck Feast
• Bowling nights
• Karaoke nights
• Movie nights
• Friday Bar and Club nights
• Bowling
• Paintball
• Snowboarding trips

Once a month Real World Chinese will also host a dinner and social evening where you will have the opportunity to share your experiences and stuff yourself silly with all the rice, soup and assorted Chinese dishes you can imagine.

Plus: Our Real World Chinese include Emergency Travel and Medical Insurance, which covers emergency medical and dental treatment, pro-rata return of program fee in case of curtailment, personal liability and more.

This summer is going to AH-MAZING!

P.S. I've already saved up all my tuition money and dorm money. Now I'm just saving up for living expenses for the summer. Yay!