Thank you, Thank you very much

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Well it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted and a lot has happened. Last Sunday, I went with Kelsey and her Chinese friend, August, to go to another campus and some museums in another part of Hangzhou. This was kind of a last minute decision on my part, and I regretted it almost as soon as the day started. They were meeting at the bus stop at 9:30 in the morning, and Kelsey said it wasn’t that far away. Not true. The bus ride to August’s campus alone took over 30 minutes, and I couldn’t help but thinking, this wasn’t going to be worth it since I’m going to have to leave early anyways to get back in time for KTV (we were meeting at 12:30) and I could have slept in longer. Needless to say, I didn’t really enjoy myself. We walked around the campus then went to a museum about the Great Canal and one about Chinese fans. This was actually pretty interesting, but I looked at the time and it was already 11:30. If I wanted to be back in time, I’d have to go catch the bus. I had to leave the fan museum early and head back. The bus had dropped us off at the campus, but we had walked quite a ways to the museums, so I had no idea how to get back or which bus would take me to my campus. I had never been in this part of Hangzhou before, it was raining, and I didn’t have my umbrella, and I was going to be late. I walked around for about 20 minutes, hoping I was at least going in the right direction until I finally found a taxi. I made it back and we met to go to the KTV.

I now officially love KTVs. I was pretty stressed out by my morning, and this was just what I needed to forget about it. KTV’s are karaoke bars, but they aren’t like ours in the States. Instead of performing for the whole place, there are separate rooms that you rent with a group of friends. No embarrassing performance, just a fun time with friends. And they had a lot of English songs so we weren’t limited in that way at all. We had paid for four hours of singing, and they were up too fast. We all loved it and plan on visiting another KTV soon.

Monday started another busy week of classes. Days are very routine during the week, and nights are usually the same. This week did have some more exciting nights than usual though. Tuesday night, Carey, Brittany, and I went to a café that we read about in the newspaper. I was particularly excited about this café because it is called Central Perk. Yes, the café in the show Friends. This café is decorated to look just like the café in the show, complete with a man dressed and looking like Gunther. And not only that, if you go upstairs you see Monica and Rachel’s and Chandler and Joey’s rooms. I about died of happiness! We looked at the menu, and they even had Ross’s sandwich and Joey’s pizza. (These were disappointing because Joey’s pizza was very small—not Joey’s at all—and Ross’s sandwich was nothing like it should have been—there was no moist-maker.) The food took a really long time to come, Brittany’s Ross’s Sandwich taking much longer than our food. You would think putting together a sandwich would take five minutes, but China seems to find ways to make Western food take at least 40 minutes to cook/assemble. I experienced the same thing at a café where I ordered a Panini. So I don’t plan on eating here very much because it’s not the best and very expensive, but they have Friends episodes playing all day downstairs, and I will definitely be hanging out there for that reason. This will be the perfect remedy for homesickness now—just go to Central Perk and watch my Friends.

Wednesday is now officially my Hell Day. I think it is the biggest Hump Day to get past to see the weekend. I have five classes literally all day, 8 in the morning to 8 at night. I signed up for an elective course about Chinese characters that started this week and is every Wednesday night from 6:30 to 8:00. I am horrified to say this, but I’m thinking of dropping my literature class. Miss Li warned me that I would be too busy taking both the business and literature classes, but I wanted to try it—she was right. I think the characters class will help me more than the literature class and it was really boring anyways. We won’t even be able to read a whole novel, so I think I’ll just buy the Chinese classics and read them for myself. I’m a little ashamed of myself for dropping a class—my first time—but once Wednesday rolls around, I don’t feel so bad. I will now have a full 4 hours free time instead of a quick 45 minutes to get dinner. I guess it’s not so bad, since I wasn’t actually enrolled in the class, only auditing.

Thursday night, Carey’s friend from her internship, DJ, invited us to her house for some Indian food. I was bummed to be missing our normal Thursday night dinners with Mubin, but how many times will I get to have a real Indian dinner from a real Indian woman? We went outside to get a taxi. I was stupid and left my umbrella, and it started to rain. Not a heavy rain, but a misty sort of rain, but wet nonetheless. We had no luck with the taxis. Every one that drove by was hired. We decided to walk in the direction of the bus stop to see if there were more there. No luck. We walked a little farther, heading in the general direction of DJ’s apartment. We ended up walking all the way to the street her apartment was on, not passing a single taxi. This took about an hour. We didn’t know which direction to go, since we had been counting on a taxi to take us there, so we went into a store to ask which direction to go. They told us that it was still a long way, so we kept looking for a taxi. Carey was periodically calling DJ to get instructions, but DJ had no idea where we were, which bus to take, or what direction to go. She has been in China teaching English for a year, but she hasn’t taken the trouble to learn any Chinese, even the necessary information of which buses run by her apartment. I was getting quite annoyed at this point. I could have been having a delicious Chinese dinner with the group, but I was stuck in the rain without an umbrella, hungry, and in no hope of getting food anytime soon. Then we found out DJ had told us the wrong address so we weren’t even on the right road! I about had it then, but a taxi miraculously showed up, so Carey was saved from my hissy fit. We made it to DJ’s apartment, and I had her Indian food. Now I have never had Indian food before, and I didn’t realize just how spicy it was. I steered clear of the dish she said was really spicy and tried the other two. Immediately my mouth was on fire. DJ told me the last dish wasn’t spicy at all, so I took a big bite of that to try to calm my burning mouth. That was spicy as well. I thought I was getting used to eating spicy food, but no. Nothing this painful had ever come in contact with my tongue. I was sweating and about crying from the heat. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy my dinner. We ended up staying there really late doing nothing but watching different music videos on Youku (Chinese Youtube). I was a little ticked off because it was a school night, I was tired, and I still hadn’t studied. It’s a little ironic: I had been regretting not getting out and trying more things and being more spontaneous, but the two times I do, it ends up going badly.

Friday was better because, it’s Friday. Miss Li had our group to her apartment for dinner. I ate way too much, but it was all delicious. I wasn’t planning on going out because I was really tired, but Mubin decided to go out with us so I changed my mind. I’m glad I did, because it was probably the most fun I have ever had. We went to a bar called Cool Car and started dancing. Mubin is so fun to dance with! He’s just like Justin—just doing his own thing, and he’s actually pretty good. Eventually, two MCs cleared the stage and announced a dancing contest. They called people up, and Mubin jumped on stage, dragging me with him. They explained that couples would get four chances to dance to different types of music—African, Spanish, hip hop, and freestyle. Mubin’s alcohol must have just hit him because he just went crazy when it was our turn. The crowd voted him out, but they kept me. Four more couples danced and a few were eliminated. I was paired with another guy for the next round of dance styles: Bollywood, bellydancing, Korean, and another hip hop. Thank goodness for my obsession with So You Think You Can Dance because me and my partner won! The winners and their friends got free drinks the rest of the night. I wasn’t too concerned with this because they had started to music again and me and Carey were dancing again when a server came up to me asking if I was the winner. She led us over to a table and couch where they had set a bottle of whiskey, coke, bucket of ice, and a bunch of glasses. They actually mixed and served the drinks for us! I felt so important. Our friend Raul showed up then, and I invited him to have a drink. He asked how we got it, but he didn’t believe that I had won, so to prove it to him, I made him dance with me. We started salsa dancing and it was amazing! It’s lucky he’s Mexican because he already kind of knows how to dance, and I must say we were pretty good! We were spinning and twirling and dipping like pros. I’ve never had so much fun in my life, and we danced for four straight hours. We were pretty disgusting by the time we left being soaked in sweat, but I was so drunk on happiness, I didn’t care. I decided afterward, that this was the perfect way to celebrate my 21st birthday; not going out to get wasted, but spend the whole night dancing with friends. And winning a dance contest helped too.

We didn’t get back to our dorm until 4 in the morning, and unfortunately Carey and I had to meet Chen Ying for lunch at her house Saturday at 11. I really just wanted to sleep all day, but we went and lunch was pretty delicious. She promised to get me the recipes for her dishes. She has a five year old daughter who is extremely adorable. She doesn’t know English, so she kept coming up to her mom and demanding “Shenme yisi!?” (What do you mean!?”) Chen Ying then took us to the Xixi Wetlands museum. It was kind of cool, but I think I’m getting tired of museums. I’ve been to more in China in one month than I have ever been to in my whole life. We got back to our campus, and I went back to bed until 7:00 that night. Mubin had invited Carey and me to a concert of one of his favorite bands. It was pretty cool, although I think I would have enjoyed it more if I could understand the lyrics. Mubin did explain what each song was about, so I could imagine what they meant. Not wanting to go out two nights in a row, I went back to bed after the concert.

Today thankfully, I had nowhere to be and nothing to do, so I slept in, did my laundry, packed for Xi’an, and planned our trip out. I think I was a bit anal in my planning, but we only have one and a half days there, and I want to make the most of it. Also, I want to know where we’re going so we don’t get lost and can tell taxi drivers where to go. Traveling by ourselves without a fluent Chinese friend with us makes me a little nervous, so I want to be prepared. I even planned out which restaurants we should go to based on where we will be during the day. I probably could do more, but after four hours, I’m tired of it and decided to leave it. Hopefully it wasn’t in vain. I better go to bed so I’m ready for our trip tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Oh and Saturday was National Day so 国庆节快乐！(Guoqing jie kuaile!)

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Comments

[Jas]

Congrats on being the dancing champ, hunny!