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Published: March 1st 2013
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It's day 6 of my Chinese adventure and so far I've noticed about half of my pre-conceptions were correct. The food here is much better than I anticipated and I already know I will miss it upon my departure in June. However, I have also come to realize I'm not quite as good at using chopsticks as I thought... Its surprisingly difficult to eat slippery dumplings and noodles with two sticks. Thank god I'm picking up on strategies of my Chinese friends/people who have been here longer than I. My roommate, Maria, and I have discovered a true Chinese treasure called Coco's. It's a bubble tea place that makes the most amazing drinks. I had a Mango Au Lait and hot Pineapple Black tea with pineapple chunks that changed my life and beat Starbuck's (Singbake as it'd called here, pronounced sing-bah-keugh) 2:1. Additionally, the Starbuck's here put sooo much sugar in their drinks. You can probably get diabetes from having just a sip.
My second pre-conception that I will not understand what anyone is saying to me was 100% accurate. Everyone I talked to before leaving said I would be fine... you guys are all dirty liars. Practically no one
here speaks English. Luckily most places have English menus (otherwise I can't eat there) and I've made friends with people who are in Advanced/Intermediate Chinese; I'm in Beginner II... Taking the placement exam was a train wreck: I knew the answer to 1 question out of the whole 5 page test and for my oral exam, the Laoshi (teacher) straight up asked me, "What DO you know how to say in Chinese?!" Luckily she also asked me what level I wanted to be in and was gracious enough to accept that I had taken one semester and didn't put me in the first class. I'm also taking Changing Nature of Business in China, China's Macroeconomic Impact, and Chinese Film and Society. I'm pretty excited for the classes, they sound interesting and start Monday. Hopefully they aren't too hard/too much work so that we have time to explore the city and have some fun inbetween.
Yesterday, the program I am here with, CIEE, had a competition called the Amazing Race Shanghai which was basically a 4 part scavenger hunt around the city. My team was 6 people, even though we were only supposed to have 4-5 but we figured they
wouldn't notice. The first stop was a statue in Luxun Park. My group was a tad scatter-brained, attempting to outrun other teams. Maria and I quickly realized how out of shape we are and stopped running (as Arber limped behind having hurt his leg muscle the first day); meanwhile Zach and Mike continued to lose the rest of the group by running ahead. When we finally found the CIEE student, we were in 5th place. The second stop was the Shanghai Museum in People's Square. Thanks to Nick's birthday present, a book of maps by district, we found a secret train stop that was much closer than the one we were "advised" to take; this put us in 3rd place! The third stop was the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. This leg of the race took us approximately 15 minutes to complete since we saw a team running past us having already finished the task and could feel the competition heating up. The last stop was the Shanghai Museum which was easy enough to find but we got lost finding the CIEE reps at Starbuck's and ended 3rd instead of a close 2nd. Luckily we still won a prize of 20
RMB to KFC which is located right outside the campus back gate; that is when they noticed that our team had an extra person... whoops. Turns out my sense of direction isn't as bad as I let on and I'm glad our running actually paid off because we were all incredibly exhausted at the end. Our celebration consisted of going to a Sports Bar and then heading to Ellen's, our local bar, for free beer between 8-9pm.
Today we had to do a medical examination in order to reapply for a multiple-entry visa. I felt like I was part of an assembly line going from one station to the next to get the paperwork done, a photo taken, pay, get blood drawn practically in public, etc. During one part of the exam, we had to go to a bus for further tests including an x-ray and these suction cup thingys that required all the girls to remove their shirts and bras and wear a robe in front of all the guys... Luckily after we were finished we got a whole roll of chocolate oreos (which Chinese people truly love to eat). Maria and I also found the Pakistani and
Ukrainian flags right next to each other in the lobby!
So far I'm loving China. I've made some really good friends already and I cannot believe it has only been 6 days; it feels like it has been 3 weeks at least! Anyways, I need to start getting ready to go out so here are my last random thoughts not in paragraph form:
• Traffic here is crazy! People go on red lights, play chicken with you by driving straight at you and waiting for the pedestrains to move, driving motorcycles/bicycles on the sidewalks instead of the bike lanes, not paying attention to lanes AT ALL, beeping continuously, etc. However, the trains come every 3 minutes pretty much which is awesome.
• Everything is SO CHEAP around our campus! Probably because we do not live in a nice part of the city. Luckily our dorm rooms are huge and have plenty of closet space, shelves, and wifi.
• I'm so glad I downloaded a VPN before leaving Boston so that I can go on Facebook and Google, both of which are banned here.
• It has been cloudy every single day except one and rainy for 2 days... 😞 London 2.0
• The guy who sold me my SIM card for my iPhone cut it manually and camps out at the back gate harrassing everyone to buy money to recharge their phones. Him and his wife are always there which is actually pretty convenient when you need a refill.
• The back gate closes at 10pm and it's a 30 minute walk to go through the front gate... This has led to us finding a side gate that closes 1 hour late, sliding under, and some people have even climbed over. The guards just sit there and laugh at us... Totally their fault that we need to resort to such measures in the first place.
• If anyone wants to contact me, I have wifi in my room so download Viber (it's free on the app store) and we can text/call. Also Skype is always a good option so schedule a time. There is a 13 hour time difference so keep that in mind!
• Last thought: We went to an awesome acrobatic show!
Love and miss you guys! Talk soon xoxo
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