I bought a bicycle!

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So I only have 10 minutes to write this because then we're leaving for the airport to go on our travel seminar to Xi'an, Beijing and Shanghai, but I wanted to write a quick entry to let you know what I've been up to.

The last two days have been spent getting over jetlag and getting to know Tsinghua's campus and surrounding areas. The first full day we were here we sat down with some Chinese Tsinghua students to ask them questions. Some of the Chinese students helped us buy bicycles and cellphones. My Chinese student (and now my new friend), Hu Tao, negotiated my bike down to 170 yuan, and they put on a basket and a nice lock. That's only about $23.45! I love the prices in China.

Yesterday Hu Tao took a bunch of us on our bikes to Lotus mall right outside of campus so that we could buy cellphones. Not everybody had a bike so some of us had to ride on the back of other people's bikes to get there.. Something tells me we're all going to have to learn to ride on the back of a bike sometime during our stay here.

When it was time to choose my cell phone number I noticed that some numbers cost more than others. I asked Hu Tao why this was and he told me that some Chinese people feel that certain numbers are luckier than others, so they will pay more to have a luckier number. I love the Chinese!

There's so much more I'd love to write right now, but I'm afraid I must run or I'll miss the bus to the airport. I'll try to update again as soon as I can!

~Sarah

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Photos

I bought a new bicycle!
My bicycle and me! Aren't we cute together?

Comments

[Steve]

lucky numbers
My roommates Uncle has a car and had to pay a crazy amount of money (something upwards of thousand dollars) for a license plate of 88 999. Have fun seeing Xi'an and Shanghai. I'm soo jeolous.