after a chat with K a few nights ago, i thought it would be interesting for you all to hear about the delicious chinese cuisine i have been enjoying. most of the time when we go out to eat, we eat family style. usually we order some eggplant (either braised in soy sauce or cooked in sugar and vinegar), bok choy, tofu... my favorite vegetarian dish aside from eggplant is called xi hong shi chao ji dan, which is tomato fried with egg. we will usually order some meat dishes too, a lot of pork and chicken. i really enjoy going [View Full Entry]

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so, the first month of my stay in china is almost over. it has gone by so fast, and i am sad to see my friends leave. i will miss carolyn and hayley a lot and am glad we became such good friends while they were here. we plan on having chinese dinners at school so we keep in touch and practice our chinese... and eat! tonight we are going to have kao ya (roast duck) for dinner to celebrate carolyn's birthday, which isn't until she is back in the states but we want a reason to celebrate. this weekend we [View Full Entry]

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Last Sunday we went to the Science Museum and the Zoo. The science museum wasn't very exciting, we went mostly to experience the earthquake simulation room, but arrived between show times and weren't interested in staying around for two hours for the next show. We went to the Zoo instead, which was a nice ride into Hefei's suburbs. The Zoo was huge, and not aweful like the stories you typically hear of zoos in Asia. At the entrance, there are a ton of peacocks roaming around free, they were so beautiful. We saw tigers, pandas, lions, bears, kangaroos, ostriches, giraffes, zebras, [View Full Entry]

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Sorry I haven't updated in a while. So much has happened in the past week that I want to tell you about, but first I want to give you all a run down of what a normal day here is like. 7:00 : I wake up, shower, and study for class 9:00 - 12:00 : Class with Zhu Chen (my chinese teacher from hampshire) 12:00 - 2:00 : We go out for lunch, maybe go to the store. Sometimes I study to prepare for my one-on-one afternoon session with Fang Laoshi. 2:30 - 3:30 : One-on-one with Fang Laoshi 4:00 - [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday was a busy day. After a full day of class, my tutors met me to go to the bank so i could exchange money for our shopping venture on Sunday. We walked there, it was hot, i was not wearing appropriate shoes and we weren't sure how far the bank was. So we kept walking and walking and walking... we passed many banks, but there was only one I that would exchange my travelers cheques. Despite the pain i endured to get some renminbi, I was glad to have a look at another part of the city. At some of [View Full Entry]

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The past two days have been very busy, so I will do my best to recap for you all. Here goes: Yesterday we were officially able to leave our house and go out into the city of Hefei! But first we had class. The building I have class in is on the other side of campus and takes about 15 minutes to walk there. It was so refreshing to see people and get out. The campus is huge, and the dorms are so cramped. We are lucky to have an apartment and most of us have single rooms. The Chinese students [View Full Entry]

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Today is the last day of quarantine. It is beautiful outside so I will likely sit outside and soak up some sun :) Last night, Hayley, Carolyn and I went on a walk around our apartment to find the frogs that croak all night. They are located in a pond surrounded by bushes so we were unable to actually see them, but since we were out we decided we would try to get a look at the city. It felt like we were doing something dangerous since we have been quarantined for so long. We kept arriving at dead ends and [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in China on Saturday night after a long day of travel. On Friday May 15, I flew from Newark airport to Shanghai. We departed New York at around 11:40pm and arrived in Shanghai at 1:30pm. When we landed in Hefei, some doctors boarded the plane to check us for swine flew. They used a laser gun to get our temperature and wore hazmat suits. It was so bizzare. We then took a high speed train ride from Shanghai to Hefei, finally arriving at our apartments at around 10:00pm. The internet wasn't working then, but we've been able to fix [View Full Entry]

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