Things are pretty much on autopilot at this point.  Everyone seems to have learned how to budget their time well, and now that the semester is almost over, we've all learned how to study effectively for tests and such.  Things are much easier now and I have a lot more free time than I used to.

Unfortunately, Erin and I only have around 20 days left here in China.  It seems like just now that things are getting more manageable, we have to leave.  Oh well, I guess that's how it goes.  It seems crazy that I go back to America so soon...of course it seems  like only yesterday that I got here, but I guess time flies.

This week is my last week of real class before finals start up.  Next week is all review, but the week after that are finals.  Craziness...then on June 1st, we fly back to America.  Back to American food.  Back to the lack of stares on the streets.  Back to my own car.  Haha, China's been great and I am excited to come back in the future, but at this point, I'm sort of ready to be back in America.

Yesterday, I had a bit of an altercation with a cab driver, haha.  From 4 PM to about 5 PM, all cab drivers in Hangzhou are switching shifts meaning that the ones on the street are driving home while new ones come to replace them.  It's the stupidest, most inane system ever, because during prime rush hour traffic, there are absolutely no cabs to take you where you want to go.  Yesterday, I was trying to get to a barbecue at a local wine cellar, but couldn't find a cab.  I asked around 16 cabs in the 35 minutes that I stood on the side of the road, and not one of them would take me there.  Super annoying, but it turned out alright.  Got Subway for dinner instead, which was really good.

Anyway, I'm about to watch some movies that we bought at a fake DVD store near West Lake.  They're all 10 kuai (about $1.50 US) a piece, so I bought 10.  Ridiculously priced, and so far, the quality has been excellent in all of them.  I'll probably go back again before I come back to America.  I was surprised because they had new movies and even some older black and white movies with the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Marlon Brando.  Definitely a cool place.

**Oops, definitely just added Google AdSense ads to my blog page and now can't get them off.  Oh well...just ignore the ad at the top of the page. Thanks.**

Well, rest assured, if swine flu ever arrives in China, it'll spread faster than you can imagine.  I'll be dead within the day, haha.  I only say this because on the way to the gym, I saw no less than 20 people spit on the streets and 2 babies peeing in the bushes.  Apparently dysentery and other infectious diseases don't exist in this utopia called China.  Anyway, moving on....

Just wrote my last article for The Daily Mississippian.  It's been a fun distraction while in China and a really good way to stay in touch with American culture, but I'm kinda sad to not be writing it anymore.  It was rather fun.  Oh well, such is life.

Currently researching restaurants for Shanghai this weekend, because if I'm in a Westernized city, I plan to spend my time there as best as I can.  Already looked up every Italian/French/American restaurant possible, and even considering going to an Applebees.  Hehe.

Anyway, off to finish studying for Business Chinese.  Just checking in/trying to be better about blogging.

Cooper

Trying to update more often than I had before, so instead of long entries, I'm just doing short, concise entries.  Gives you something to read every now and again even though they're not all long and in depth.

This weekend, we planned on going to Putuoshan, an island in the Pacific off the coast of China, but we missed the last boat out of NingBo on Friday.  Instead of trying to rush there in the morning, we just decided to cut our losses and stay in Hangzhou for the weekend.  It turned out to be a good decision.  A friend from Shanghai came down for the weekend, so we all hung out together and saw some new places in Hangzhou.  The weather has been great the last few days, so we've just been heading down to West Lake and finding different places to hangout.

Right now, I'm writing an essay for my literature class at this really nice sidewalk cafe we found this weekend.  It has salads, pasta, sandwiches, etc. so it was quite a find.  They also have good coffee and fruit juices, so we're all kind of excited to find this place.  It's also next door to a youth hostel, so there are always Westerners walking in and out, which is really strange.  It's been a long time since I've seen more than 2 or 3 Westerners at a single time, so it's just odd to have big groups walking around.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to writing my essay.  Hopefully will update again soon.  Plans for next weekend are to head to Shanghai Thursday night since we have a 3 day weekend.  It's May Day on Friday which is the big party to celebrate Communism...I think it commemorates the May 5th Revolution in Russia, but I'm not entirely sure.  Anyway, we're heading to Shanghai on Thursday night and coming back Sunday.  Our friend is throwing a housewarming party Saturday night, so we'll probably head there and maybe eat on The Bund one night.  I've heard good things about the restaurants along the river.  Looking forward to it.

Frustrated

So, went into the teacher's office today to talk about classes grades and such.  It was fine, no big deal, except for one thing.  Wednesday during my 8 AM class, I was a bit tired and not exactly on focus.  I mentioned to my teacher that I was up late finishing a movie I was watching (after I had finished studying, mind you), so what does she proceed to do? Tell the head of our program that my class performance is suffering because I've been watching too many English movies and English tv shows.  What the heck?  Was she kidding?  I mean, really, who does that?  Anyway, so instead of having a constructive talk today with the head of the program, she instead berated me for 20 minutes for not "immersing myself completely" in the program by being in contact with English too much.  I'm in college now...pushing 22 years old.  I think I can handle things myself without someone telling me to stop watching tv.  And the thing is, I'm not watching that much, if it even makes a difference.  Ugh, whatever.  I'm so over this program at this point.  I'm just ready to finish up and looking forward to my next few weekends of travelling.

Elementary School...

Just got back from a trip to a local elementary school with my classmates.  On Wednesdays, my classmates and I usually go on trips organized by the school here.  Last week, we went to a small tea village where we got to look around, help pick tea, and climb into the hills to talk with the women picking tea. Quite fun.  Anyway, today we went to an elementary school to look around and see how they're run in China.  It ended up being really fun, though I was really tired going into it.  We sat in on two classes: the first was an art class where they painted and performed with shadow puppets.  We all got to help make the puppets, so that was fun.  The second class was an English class, maybe?  Anyway, alot of the kids has questions written out to ask us in English like "What's your favorite color/food/type of weather/etc.?"  I signed my name there more times than I can count.  It seemed like every kid in the whole school wanted our autographs...it was fun for awhile, but got a bit overwhelming when there were literally 15 kids swarming around you demanding your name.  It was weird...but fun.  

Anyway, just got back from that, and now I'm about to watch some Offce on the computer.  Might go to the gym in a bit, but will probably just go eat Korean food instead, haha.  Update again later. Bye!

Here's a link to my Picasa Web album with all of my pictures from China so far...this one is far better organized than the stupid Photobucket.com account.  Anyway, Thailand pictures are up. Please have a look!

http://picasaweb.google.com/cnreves

P.S.  Added comments on lots of the Thailand photos...so have a look.  It's easier to do it and and just link to it than try to upload them all to here.

Short Post...

Wore shorts and a short sleeved collared shirt today because the weather was nice, but I swear I've never gotten so many stares in my entire life.  People in China don't seem to change clothes with the seasons seeing as everyone is still decked out in winter coats, boots, and jackets.  It's really strange, so I thought I'd be a rebel today and dress weather-appropriate.

Went to a market today with a friend to buy some luggage for Thailand.  I have a weekend back but it wasn't  big enough for everything I need for a week, and I don't particularly want to bring a suitcase.  I'm not sure I trust SoutEast Asian airlines with my luggage.  Anyway, went to the market, and it was an experience.  Nothing has tags so we got to bargain which was fun.  I bought a fake NorthFace duffel for 40 kuai (less than 6 dollars) which was a pretty good quality.  Think I still paid a bit too much, but whatever.  My friend bought a couple of nicer quality bags that were sorta expensive (though still under 20 bucks, haha) so all in all, it was a fun trip.

Currently trying to finish up studying for midterms.  I only have 2 more this week.  Additionally, I have to register for classes at Ole Miss later tonight, which is proving to be quite a hassel.  Regardless, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Anyway, update again before I leave for THAILAND ON SATURDAY!!!!!!

Had a bit of free time tonight so thought I'd blog for awhile...

So this weekend was a blast! On Friday after classes, Erin and I along with another of our friends here went to Maya Bar yet again for Mexican food and margaritas.  We were feeling alright after our Friday tests, but absolutely DID NOT want to go travelling for the weekend.  Good thing the school had already made plans for us to travel to a local mountain village, right? Haha, anyway after we got over the fact that we would have to ride a bus into the mountains for a few hours and stay at a house with people we didn't know, it was alright.

Headed into the mountains about 2 and a half hours outside of Hangzhou and ended up in this tiny little village in a valley of sorts.  Although still a village, this couldn't have been anymore different than the previous village I visited.  The people here were rich and all had HUGE houses.  Like 4 stories huge.  It was really quite impressive.  Apparently the people here grow and sell walnuts, which is a lucrative business in China it turns out.  Anyway, we stayed with these really great families, and I actually got a room to myself. An entire room!  It was intense!

Friday night, they cooked for us, and after a delicious dinner including bamboo shoots from the backyard, we all went outside to play with the kids from the village.  These kids were so cute and so happy to have us there, so it was fantastic.  All were under the age of 12-ish, because after that age, kids go to boarding school and/or have to study all day long for the gaozhong(the intense state-run testing system to determine what colleges kids can get into...think the ACT/SAT but instead of testing your thinking ability, it tests raw knowledge of subject matter.) so they're not around much.  We played hide and seek all night long, and after an hour or so, collapsed into bed.

Saturday, we woke up early and went on a hike after breakfast.  The hike was rather fun, winding through bamboo covered mountains and valleys punctuated by winding rivers.  Before returning to the village, we explored a dam on one of the rivers.  After the hike, I was really struck by the amount of actual planning and construction that China puts into creating the scenery.  It seemed that every hillside was cleared at least partially of the trees to allow for foot traffick and the path of every river seemed meticulously controlled for maximum usage.  Really strange.

That night, the village threw a party in our honor.  We met in the "town square" where several groups of women from the village performed choreographed dances and played instruments.  A couple of women even did a line dance to an American country song.  That part was extremely surreal.  After several hours of festivities, we all went to sleep because we were waking up early the next morning to go to church.

Sunday morning, most of us headed to the local church.  When I go to foreign countries, I always make it a point to go to a church service, because I think religion is so indicative of the culture.  If you want to have any grasp at all on the situation of the locals, I feel like a church service is a must.  I'd already been to a Buddhist shrine in my first village, so luckily, on this visit, we all headed to a local Christian church.  Once we arrived, everyone seemed to stare and us, but unsurprisingly, they were very hospitable...offering us all Bibles to read (in Chinese, of course) and cups of hot tea.  Overall, I had a great time translating familiar Bible verses in my head while attempting to understand the preacher.  The church service wasn't actually that much different from one at home.  The preacher seemed a bit "fire and brimstone," but besides that, I was pretty comfortable.  Wish I could say the same for everyone else, though.  The Chinese roomates/teachers all seemed extremely uncomfortable with the situation, and after 5 minutes or so, most had left to walk back to the village.  I'm not really sure how I felt about that...we were invited to the church and everyone was extremely hospitable, so it seemed like even if you didn't necessarily believe in this, you could at least sit for a bit and watch.  But oh well...I guess it might just be another cultural thing I won't understand for awhile.  Regardless, I had a fun time learning about Chinese Christianity.  By the way, the Chinese translation of the Bible was hilariously literal.  Think Genesis..."God said LIGHT!, so LIGHT!  Now do not have dark"

After church, a couple of us decided to go hiking on our own up a nearby mountain.  The mountain was beautiful climbing up, and though a bit steep at times, it was manageable.  Getting down was another matter.  We tried walking down the way we came but soon realized this would be impossible.  Walking up a muddy mountain is surprisingly easier than walking down it.  So we slid down.  On our buts.  At high velocity.  I can easily say it was the most outright fun thing I've done in China so far.  We were basically pinballs on the way down, ricochetting between bamboo stalks, brambles, and each other.  Once at the bottom, we all stood up and started jogging, but couldnt stop.  The hill was still steep, so I managed to grab onto a passing bamboo stalk and stopped myself from flying into the forest.  It was absolutely great.

Once we got back and cleaned off our pants, we had lunch and then departed for Hangzhou.  A few hours later, we got back, but on the bus ride back I got to finish reading my book, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.  Easily one of my favorite books now...I can't believe I haven't read it before.  I also bought a new CD, "The Hazards of Love" by the Decemberists, so I'm pretty set right now.  Little homework this week and possibly heading to Shanghai on Thursday, so all is well in China.

P.S. Here's a link to a friend's online photo album.  It's got some really great China pictures on it, so have a look.  I've been to most of the places she's been too: http://picasaweb.google.com/lubyx010

PICTURES

Part of an archaeological dig that we visited.  They were excavating the site of the Hemudu civilization from something like 2-3000 years ago.  Very cool.  The gov't built a roof over the site to protect it...but it leaked.  Thus, the cave-in in the next picture.  Nice, China.


When I went to the village a few weekends ago to stay with one of the roommates' family's, we went to a pig farm that they owned.  Very strange.


Piglets.  Very cute.
This is the house that we stayed in that weekend.  It was super nice.
This is the front of the Buddhist shrine that was in the village.  Everyone came here to worship, and they hold festivals and religious celebrations here as well.
Buddhist idols/whatever you want to call them.  They were really beautiful.  I think I like Buddhism.

This was a view from my balcony in the house...mountains in the distance and a river down below.
This was what some of the village houses looked like...but alot were smaller than this. And dingier.
I'm standing next to one of the other guys in our program.  On the far right is that guys roommate.  In the middle is the roommate's mother...she cooked for us most of the weekend.  Really nice lady and a really good cook as well.
Cute dog that I saw.  I wanted to keep him.
Funny sign I found on a wall in the village...it was advertising "Radiation Protection Screens" for your computer because apparently, computers emit tons of radiation that will fry your face.  The text is hilarious.

Random street in the village.
These were shoes on display inside the Buddhist shrine...the ones on the right are what really threw me off.  They're shoes used for the practice of foot-binding.  People don't do that in China anymore, but it was really strange seeing that on display.

And finally, this is the room that we stayed in that weekend...there are three beds total.  It was actually pretty nice.

Finally...New Post

Hi everyone.  Writing to you from the most beautiful Starbucks in the history of the world.  It's in XiHu TianDi which is this Epcot-ish grouping of restaurants, bars, and other things all nestled against the lake.  The Starbucks is in the middle of the rainforest, and seeing as it's currently raining outside, it seems rather fitting.

Chinese is....rather difficult.  Tests are hard and studying is taking over my life, but I don't want to talk too much about that because then I'll just sound negative.  I'm having a great time in China, and it's really nice that I can actually see how much better my Chinese is getting as the days go on.

Spring Break is in a month (April 4th-9th, or something like that), so this weekend, Erin and I along with some of the other students we're friends with are planning our trip.  We have it narrowed down to either XinJiang (a predominantly Muslim province in the far west of China.  It borders 8 countries including Russia, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, etc.) or Thailand.  Both have cheap flights, so I'm not really sure right now.  We'll see.

Well, went to the mountains a few weekends ago with the roommate and a few other students.  We stayed with the family of one of the roommates in this tiny village of about 100 people.  The village is based around this Buddhist shrine/small temple and everyone congregates there.  The first day we were there, we went trekking into a local bamboo forest.  The villagers all grow their own bamboo to eat (which is phenomenal, by the way), so it was really cool to see their rows of bamboo growing.  We slept in really nice rooms (for China), but there was no heat anywhere or hot water, so things got cold that weekend.  The next day, we got up early and explored the village with the family.  It turns out that the family business is pig farming, so we went to their farm and visited.  Baby pigs are cute, by the way.  Later, we went to this really cool archaelogical dig nearby that the Chinese government is currently excavating.  It's the remains of the civilization of the HeMuDu people from something like 2,000-3,000 years ago.  Really neat stuff, except for the fact that the rain had eroded alot of the people's progress and caused several cave-ins.  Oh well...that's China for you.  They tried to build a roof over the site, but of course, it leaked.  Hahahaha, oh China...

Last weekend, we stayed in Hangzhou and explored the city some more.  We got a few glimmers of nice weather, so we all went to West Lake to walk around.  It was a really nice weekend overall.  This weekend looks to be more of the same.  My friend, Katelyn Wear, mentioned to me that she knew a high school friend who was in Hangzhou working this semester, so a few days ago, we got into contact with one another, and I think we're all going to go out tonight.  Apparently, there are several Americans working with her, so it'll be nice to meet some more Americans in Hangzhou.

I promise to be more diligent with the blogging from now on.  I think I'm finally adjusted to life in China, so things should get more consistent from now on.  Until next time, here are some pictures that I've accumulated.  I started a Photobucket.com account that I'll update occasionally, so you can just follow me there.  Oh, and there are some videos too: Here

COOOOOLD

It's super cold here.  I know I shouldn't be complaining too much considering some of my friends are in Harbin, China on the border with Russia, but I can't help it.  I haven't been properly warm in days.  Our dorm rooms have "heaters," but really, they don't do that great of a job.  The classrooms don't use heaters either.  And outside surely isn't warm, so I'm forced to constantly suffer through this chilly weather.

I think it might not be so bad if it wasn't for the rain.  Usually, I really love cold weather (barring that one trip to Chicago where the temperatures were something like -13).  It's brisk and really wakes you up in the morning, but here, the cold is always accompanied by the rain which just seems to seep in everywhere.

Besides the weather, I had a good weekend.  Decided to stay and explore the city instead of heading to Shanghai, which was nice.  On Friday night, a bunch of us went to Maya Bar for food and drink specials.  They served MEXICAN FOOD!!!  I had chicken burritos with real white meat...none of this biting into your KFC sandwhich only to find a bone and some darm sinew. As the night dragged on, we saw a white man pull up in a van outside the window.  He unloaded a grill and proceeded to cook these massive hamburgers.  Although we'd already eaten, none of us could pass up a hamburger.  So we ate them.  Turns out we met a ton of American, German, English, Australian, French expats that night.  They were all really cool (and really old), so it was nice to be able to ask them questions that you can't exactly ask another Chinese person.

Classes are still going well.  I took a few pictures this weekend when we headed out into the city, but most of them turned out like crap because of the weird and awkward weather.  West Lake was constantly covered in this dense fog/misty rain making it near impossible to take a picture that didn't look like I was gazing across the River Styx in Hades.  Anyway, when the weather lets up, I'll have some nice pictures to put up.

Coming Soon...

Decided to stay in Hangzhou this weekend to hang out with the other students, so I'll be sure to take actual pictures of Hangzhou.  It's really pretty so far, but the weather has been terrible.  I hear Spring is comin soon, so the plum trees will be blooming everywhere.

In other news, I signed up for a cooking class taught by a Hangzhou tv chef.  Should prove to be interesting.  Also, I signed up for a Tai Qi class (Tai Qi on Wikipedia) which takes place once a week in a park on campus.  I'm excited about both, so it should prove to be an interesting semester.  Well, I've got to go.  We're going to a local restaurant to learn to make Jiaozi(Picture from Wikipedia) in 5 minutes.  I've got to be off.  Bye!

So, today was a good day.  Not that the rest have been particularly bad, but today's was particularly good.  It's not that I did anything spectacular, but I think I finally have my routine down.

Joined a gym a yesterday that's extremely nice.  It's funny because the showers at the gym are better than the showers at the dorm.  The showers here are insid the bathroom, but not separate from the toilet, sink, etc.  So when you take a shower, all the water just kind of runs everywhere.  There are two drains that the water supposedly runs into, but there was also a mop provided in every bathroom, which says to me "Sorry our drains are terrible, but here's a mop to help out juuuust a little."  Regardless, showers here are sketchy to say the least.  I wear shoes.

Anyway, back to the gym.  It's extremely nice, so I've gone there the past two nights.  After the gym tonight, a couple of us went to KFC which was my first time to eat American food here in China.  It was nice, but not exactly the same as at home (not that I eat at KFC that often in America).  For one, there weren't any biscuits or mashed potatoes.  I was livid, which is funny because I don't know that many exclamations in Chinese, so I just kept saying the same thing over and over.  Also, they don't sell chicken strips.  LAME.  So I got a chicken sandwhich (which turned out to be dark meat, but thankfully without bones) which was pretty good and also some french fries. Yum.

Classes have started and are going fairly well.  I only have 1 class tomorrow and then I'm through for the week, so I'm excited about that as well as the lack of homework tonight.  So far, I'm enjoying my classes even if it is difficult to undersand the teachers sometimes.  I'm taking 4 classes here: A One on One Topics-Based Course (my topic is Religion in Modern China), a Two on One speaking and pronounciation course (which turned out to just be a One on One course because of an odd number of students), Business Chinese, and Modern Chinese Literature.  All the courses are taught exclusively in Chinese, which has proven to be difficult.  Even when the teachers define new words and phrases, they use Chinese to describe them, though I suppose this is good because of how much it will increase my listening comprehension.

Tomorrow night, a bunch of us are going out to this huge club, G+, to hear this famous DJ.  I mean, I've never heard of him, but he's billed as famous (which I guess means I'm buying into the marketing scheme.  Oh well, I'm in China and won't get to do this kind of thing again for awhile).  So anyway, we're all going to do that tomorrow night, and then for the weekend, most of us are going to stay in Hangzhou to explore the city and maybe head to a few of the smaller tea villages in the nearby hills/mountains.

My roommate and I seem to be getting along quite well.  I came home tonight to find a pear sitting on my desk that he bought for me.  He's really thoughtful, and the fruit was tasty.  He probably got it from Hou men(literaly "back door or gate", which is this amazing little neighborhood at the back gate of our campus.  There are restaurants galor and also tons of street vendors selling all different kinds of food.  I've tried some strange grilled meat (they said it was pork.  For my sake, let's hope so), a fried banana with ketchup, baozi, jiaozi, tons of fruit (they have GREAT pineapple and oranges here), and various other noodle and rice dishes.

Well, I'm about to head out.  I just bought some American tv shows in iTunes and some friends and I are going to watch them.  Nothing says comfort like Rock of Love: Tour Bus and The Real World. Yesssss.  

P.S. Here's some pictures I've accumulated.

This is a baozi.  It's basically a small dumpling with any number of fillings inside.  You can get vegetable inside along with different meats, but this one is my favorite.  It has red beans inside of it.  Red beans are this tasty creation that I hardly ever see outside of China.  They look like kidney beans, but they have this intensely sweet taste to them, so this is sort of like dessert.

This is some tuna sushi that a man on the side of the road made for me.  Overall, it wasn't that great, but it was totally worth the 60 cents I paid for it, haha.

PICTURE POST!!!!!

So, Erin and I were walking through a park in Shanghai and were accosted by this random man.  He really wanted to talk to us because according to him, "I HATE talking to the Shanghainese...they're so boring.  I only talk to foreigners."  He seemed really proud of his strenght, and he made us guess his age (88, if you were wondering).  He was also really proud of his teeth.  Apparently, its pretty common in China to lose all ones teeth, so keeping them at such a late age is a real feat.


This was a sign on a door in an antiques market we went to.  Strange things, these Chinese people.  I'm pretty sure if anyone had mammoth tusks, this dirty antiques market would not be where they were.
This was a window at a jiaozi shop.  The woman inside is rolling the dough that she then passes to her left where it is filled and steamed.
Since it's the year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac calendar, there are oxes EVERYWHERE in China.  This was one of our favorite.

Inside the YuYuan gardens that I mentioned in my first post, there were all these bizarre...I dunno what you'd call them.  They're sort of like nativity scenes, but made out of paper, and I'm not really sure the purpose of them.  Oh, and there's another ox.

This is what the alleyways looked like.  Everything was REALLY  touristy, and Erin and I kept forgetting we were in China.  It was almost exactly like Epcot's China exhibit in Disney World.
In the middle of the pond is a famous tea house...I think it was called Huizhong.  Anyway, there were about a thousand people in or around it, so we never made it inside.

This was our view of the Pearl Tower at around 2:00 one day.  There was an insane amount of smog...it was kind of gross.

This is a picture of a public restroom near our school in Hangzhou.  For some reason, the sign said "Tool Room." Believe me, I'm just as confused as you are.
I was absolutely terrified to eat this at first.  I thought it was some monstrosity of congealed orange meat and maybe worms.  Turns out, it's candied lotus root.  Inside the holes of the root, they stuff sweet rice.  It was surprisingly good, but I think I might have been slightly allergic to it because after I ate it, my tongue went sort of numb and tingly for an hour or so.  Strange times.
And this is the famous Shanghai skyline.  I took this from my cellphone on the night of the lantern festival.  Such a cool experience.

**This post was written yesterday after I'd just arrived, but I just now got the chance to create my blog and post everything**

February 11, 2009

Wow. So today was my first introduction to what this semester will really be like, and it’s going to be intense.  Erin and I got up this morning relatively early to try and catch our train from Shanghai to Hangzhou.  Although we were staying at the Holiday Inn RIGHT NEXT to the train station, it was our luck that our tickets said we had to leave from the other train station, because apparently, there are several.  Anyway, we rushed out the door and made it to the train station right as everyone was boarding, so thankfully, we weren’t late.

The train ride proved to be interesting as we got to see the urban sprawl of Shanghai give away to rolling fields full of farmers (though these “rolling fields” were still overshadowed by skyscraper-esque housing developments.  You wouldn’t believe how many 50 floor housing developments there are in China).  After we got off the train, we were immediately accosted by tons of taxi drivers promising us the cheapest, easiest cab rides to wherever we were going.  We were smart enough to say no, and instead, we waited in the official taxi line for our cab.  Though it took over an hour, our ride only cost 20 yuan when minutes earlier, I had been fine with bartering and paying 100 yuan for the ride from one of the guys mentioned earlier.  Regardless, we got to Zhejiang University of Technology in one piece.

From the moment we got to our dorms, Erin and I didn’t speak any English at all.  I think the last thing I said to her was “I’m never packing this much again if we have to lug it arou...!” before I was cut off in Chinese by the director of our program.  I mean, Erin and I did manage to sneak in a few words of English here or there when we could, but it wasn’t much.  We immediately went upstairs to the second floor to move into our rooms and meet our Chinese roommates.  Mine was more than happy to see me which was strange, but not altogether disconcerting.  All of us were immediately whisked away to lunch with the other students.

Afterwards, my roommate offered to take Erin and I to ChinaMobile (the state run mobile phone company).  Two of his friends came along, and after literally an hour and a half, we managed to make it out alive and with two working Chinese cell phones.  One of the stranger things about the experience is that in China, you buy your SIM card separately from your phone, so you get to choose a number that’s been recycled from a previous user.  The most important part of picking your own numbers is to pick the number with the least amount of 4’s in it (because in Chinese, the word 4 or si is extremely similar to the word for death si which makes it a terribly unlucky number).  Conversely, you should pick a number with the most number of 6’s considering 6 is a lucky number.

After this harrowing experience, my roommate and his friends took Erin and I to see our first glimpses of West Lake, though at the time we had no idea what we were doing considering we could understand scant few of their quickly-spoken and garbled Chinese sentences.  Finally, we arrived at the famous West Lake and were greeted by a jaw-droppingly beautiful lake surrounded by verdant mountains.  The trees are almost in bloom here, so as you can imagine, the setting was near perfect.  At one point, we all decided to charter a boat rowed by a nice, older Chinese man further down the lake.  The sun began to set at this point, and the distant mountains were thick with mist (though it should be noted that the “mist” is actually just China’s pollutants blocking the sun and scattering its rays, haha.  Nice effect, though).  After going back to the dorms, we went on a small tour of the campus, which by the way has two rivers running through it.  Very cool.

I guess the hardest thing so far is going to be keeping the language pledge which says that I cannot speak ANY English at all while I’m here.  It’s going to be strange, but I suppose I have to do it.  Today while Erin and I were buying our phone and seeing West Lake with my roommate, I felt like I was going to pop if I didn’t say something in English.  Everything was so beautiful, but all I could say about it in Chinese was “That’s so pretty.  Really beautiful.  Oh wow.”  It was frustrating, but I’ll just have to get over it.  Either that or save all my English up until Erin and I can go by ourselves somewhere, haha.

I’ll keep everyone posted with pictures and such as soon as I plug in my camera, and I’ll try to keep this updated fairly often.  It probably won’t be that hard to update though considering this is one of the only ways to communicate in English.  Until next time.

大家好！In Chinese, that means hello everyone!  I've decided to start this blog for all the reasons familiar to most study abroad students....I wanted to keep in touch with family and friends, everyone seems to recommend it, etc.  Also, I wanted to start this journal because it's virtually the only place I can use English everyday.  I'm at the C.V. Starr Middlebury China Program at Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou, China.  At my school, we have to sign the "Language Pledge" which basically says that you cannot speak English until you graduate from the program.  Exceptions are made for emergencies, talking to parents and friends online, and a few other instances, but mostly we have to speak Chinese.  I guess that's a good thing, but right now the task of speaking exclusively Chinese for 4 months seems insurmountable(see what I mean? How would I ever know the word for insurmountable in Chinese? It's rather difficult...).  Regardless, I suppose I'll have to considering they'll kick you out if you're reprimanded for breaking the pledge three times.

I travelled to China with a friend of mine, Erin Callahan, who will also be going to the same school as me.  Although school doesn't start until Monday, Erin and I arrived in Shanghai, China on Saturday, February 7th.  We were heavily jetlagged, so as soon as we got to the hotel, we pretty much just went to sleep.  Overall, it was around 22 hours of travel.  NOT something I'd like to repeat in the near future.  Anyway, we woke up the next morning in Shanghai (at around 5 or so, keep in mind, because of the jet-lag) and decided to do some exploring.  We walked down to the Bund to see Shanghai's famous, futuristic skyline, but unfortunately, the pollution that day skewed our view.  Some of it might have been fog, as Erin kept insisting, but I had my doubts.

Our next task was the most difficult yet.  We must have walked to 10 or so restaurants haphazardly translating menus before we finally found one that had pictures for us to point to and order.  Apparently, we need to learn more food words.  Anyway, we ate an unremarkable lunch and continued on our way to The People's Square which is this ginormous park with everything surrounding it.  I know that's deceptively vague, but that's really the best way to describe it.  In fact, that's the best way to describe Shanghai. BIG.  Whether you mean big in size or gaudiness, it all applies to Shanghai.  It seems like this is where all of China's consumerism has come to roost.

Throughout the rest of our long weekend in Shanghai, Erin and I made it to the French Concession which is this area of town that the French controlled for a bit as a trading post during the 1800s (I think it was then).  While walking through the maze of tightly winding streets, it was easy to forget that we were in China and not actually in Europe.  We also went to YuYuan Gardens which was an area of the city that was a garden/monastery some time in the recent past, but now it's morphed into this touristy-mecha full to the brim of Chinese tourist and fake antiques.  Although it was a really fun experience, I doubt I'll make it back there again anytime soon.  I'm not really a fan of the immensity of the crowds there.  When trying to move around, you didn't really walk...rather, you shuffled your feet and scooted inches at a time.  And if the crowd turned one way, then by damn, you'd better want to go that way because there's not much of a choice at that point.

Besides those things, we really just spent time overcoming jetlag.  We hung out in the hotel lots and studied Chinese.  One night, we went back to the Bund to see Shanghai's famous skyline at night, and boy was it spectacular.  It made every other city look positively medieval in comparison.  It turned out that that night was the last night of the Lantern Festival.  Erin and I kept seeing these strange flickering lights all over the sky which we both thought were UFO's until one burst into flames.  It turns out that people were lighting lanters and floating them into the sky.  One of these lanterns actually caught the Mandarin Hotel in Beijing on fire and burnt it to the ground this weekend.  Brand new hotel.  The Chinese government covered it up really well considering everything, but that was kind of crazy.

Anyway, that was the highlights of our stay in Shanghai.  I'm about to head to bed for the night, but do my best to post as much as I can this semester.  I think I'll probably be doing that alot considering it's rather nice to be able to put my thoughts together in English rather than Chinese.