Shiyan - Day 1

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Welp, it's technically day 2 in Shiyan.. but it's day 1 after my Xi'an trip.

I woke up at 7, 8 and then finally got up at 8:30 because HP was in a playful mood. I took her out, and I'm glad I did. She had to go bad. We walked up and down the street for a few minutes, and then I realized we had actually passed the hotel. Whoops. Some lady gave us a "hot dog" because she was eating one, and no matter how hard I tried to get HP to go, she would just turn around and stare at the lady. I tried saying no, but HP is a good beggar. Ha.

We came back in, and I found her a bone in the bag full of stuff Kyle gave me. I also found a little doggy diaper. I thought that was kinda random. Also there were about a million plastic gloves in a plastic bag. I don't know what that's about. She played with her Mickey Mouse some too. Dillon called and said he was expecting to see me today.

I sent J & P a message around 10:30 because I was soo bored. There was nothing on tv that I was interested in or could understand, I had no music or anything to distract me. P brought her straightener over, and I finished getting ready.

When I was ready I headed over to their room. We went to KFC for lunch. Apparently KFC is the only place in China that doesn't allow dogs.. and for some reason, Chinese people think I understand their language. The girl started out with, "I'm sorry." and then she went into Chinese. I just kinda looked at her. She said, "Dog." and then spoke Chinese. Uh, ok. I looked at P, and then the girl says, "I'm sorry. Dogs are not allowed." What?? Why do I understand Chinese, but P doesn't? So I said I would get my food and leave. She said ok.

We took the food back to the hotel and ate in the lobby on some couches. A Chinese kid came over to me and started jabbering in Chinese. Really?? I said, "Ting bu dong" I don't know how many times. She would repeat it, and then she'd try saying something else. I know she was talking about HP, but goodness, I had no idea what to do. She was real up close and personal with me. She sat as close to me as possible, and even propped herself up on my shoulder once. She touched my straw, and I said, "Don't touch that." She said, "I'm sorry." I didn't think she'd understand. It was so odd. We've learned HP is not a fan of kids. She let the girl pet her for a second, but then did her absolute best to get away from her. I don't know. It's weird.

We went back up to our rooms after J got our room keys reactivated. That was hilarious. The front desk didn't know what he was saying, so he did a little charades thing.. pretending he swiped the card and he couldn't open the door. I laughed at him. The lady finally got it and fixed it for us.

I texted Kyle. He was with his friend, Micah. I also found out Nahoko made the doggy diaper from split pants. She knew Kyle had to take her in the car, and they only work when she's still. They otherwise fall off of her.

I tried to see if J & P wanted to head to the school early. I was sooo bored. P was napping though. We left about 2:30 by taxi. We were supposed to be there at 3. We made it on time, and we went and got drinks, and then J & P wanted to see the apartments. It was a mess trying to get over there, and you couldn't really see anything.

Kyle waited on us in front of the teaching building, and we walked up to the 8th floor. ugh. We went back down to the 7th with Chen Mei, an assistant dean, because they weren't ready for us to sing.. oh yeah, did I explain what's happening? Probably not. If I did, ignore this next part... so apparently they've made some chorus where P has a lead solo singing The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music. Ha! It's some competition within the school, and all the foreigners are a part of the English chorus. Nahoko is doing a solo for some Japanese song called Believe. It's pretty crazy. So we sat in the English office for a little while and then went back up to the classroom to practice. I sat in the back with Kyle, and then Nahoko came and joined us. J came back there after he realized we were all there. We left P hanging out up there alone with her solo. ha. We sang it several times in the classroom, and then we went outside. It. sounded. awful.

Mr. Peng, the dean of the English department, came up and shook J & P's hands and told them thank you for cooperating and helping.. this is all because J flipped out on them when they kept asking us to come back from Xi'an early. He told the school to quit interrupting his vacation. His coteacher tried to up and quit on him. It was kind of a mess.

Anyway, we ended up having to go to dinner with the school.. except Kyle weaseled his way out of it. He had Micah's key, and it was the only one Micah had.. blah blah. He's sneaky. I don't blame him though.. he suffered through two banquets the day before.

It wasn't too bad. I had to sit by Mr. Peng.. awesome. He toasted J & P a lot and said the English department would not forget their contribution. I'm pretty sure he didn't say contribution.. he's not super great with English. But anyway, Chen Mei was there, and she said I had a charming smile. Then everyone started chattering in Chinese. I heard my name, and I knew they were talking about me, but I had no idea what they were saying.. I pretty much didn't care. ha. After a little while, J said he needed to go. I left with him and P because I didn't want to be stuck there alone.

We walked over to campus, and P got HP some rice. J met Jennifer there to talk about something. Dillon met me, and we all ended up walking over to Finn's apartment at the medical school.

Finn has a dog named Sim Sim, and the dog is really big.. well, not really big, but really big in comparison to HP. She was scared, but she ate his dog food... like she was hungry. She's such a nut. She wouldn't let Finn touch her hardly. She stayed in my lap or under the chair I was sitting in most of the time. Katelyn came over. She's a new teacher, and she and Finn are friends. He played Halo Reach with a friend online and gave us peanut m&m's. (I never know how to spell that.. I always, for some reason want to put m n m's... I really checked it on google. No kidding. ha) We left because Finn said he needed to get a shower.

J & P, HP and I headed back to the hotel. It was a pretty quick trip. I put HP on the other bed for the night and went to sleep.

Oh, at some point during the day I realized that all those plastic gloves are because I was giving HP flea medicine at the time I gave her to my student.. Ha.

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