Our Halloween party was a success! We started making the snacks Sunday afternoon. Everything turned out well except that rice crispie bars. Now I know it should be like the easiest thing in the world to make, but it really isn’t. I’m attributing it to the fact that none of us had made them before, the instructions were in Chinese, and we had weird marshmallows. They ended up being just a shapeless blob on a plate since we didn’t have a pan to spread them out in. I tried some of it later, and it wasn’t too bad, but I won’t be making those again. Our more successful treats were some witches brooms made with pretzel sticks and Fruit by the Foot, dirt cups, brownies, and grilled cheese sandwiches (our Chinese friends specifically requested these). I ... read more

Twas the night before Halloween…and we’re celebrating our own Chinese version of it tonight. It’s a little strange not seeing Halloween decorations everywhere, but Halloween really isn’t popular here. It made it difficult to plan a Halloween party. We went to the store to find costumes and decorations, but they only had one tiny section of products. Well, not a section, a shelf. It was such a sad representation of Halloween, I who am used to whole stores dedicated to the holiday. They had different colored hair wigs, some masks, pirate hats and capes. That was all. No orange and black streamers, no ready to wear costumes (if you want a costume you have to find the separate pieces to put it together), and no Halloween packaged candy. I looked online for some easy to make ... read more

This week I had a breakthrough. The package that my parents and boyfriend sent me for my birthday had been held at customs, so I had to try to figure out how to get it here. At first, they just needed my passport information which I gave them. But the package was still not delivered. When I called them the first time, they said it would be sent after National Day. National Day came and went and still no package. I looked on the UPS website to track my package and it said “Package abandoned by sender/receiver.” This made me panic a bit because of course, I had not abandoned it; I was just waiting for customs to get through all their apparent paperwork to send it. The next day I checked again, and the site ... read more

October 6 We got back from Xi’an today, and I have never had such a bittersweet experience in my life! Xi’an was cool, but traveling was HELL! Brittany, Carey, and I left the station in the afternoon on Monday. We had hard sleepers, so we had beds and room to move around. It was fun, except for the fact I wasn’t able to sleep at all that night because the other Chinese men were snoring so loudly! I had to put my music on so I couldn’t hear them, but even that didn’t help because I’m not used to listening to music when I sleep, so I barely slept Monday night. I got to make up for it though once everyone else woke up that morning. We got to Xi’an at about ten in the morning, ... read more

Now that our classes are in full swing, I’m fully appreciating time and mourning my lack of it. I hardly have a free moment anymore what with studying and doing homework, writing blogs and journals for class. I really do love this though. I always feel like I’m accomplishing something, and there is always more to do. Even if I don’t necessarily enjoy writing articles, I’m thankful for this internship because it provides me with so much information about Hangzhou and new restaurants and venues we can visit. Now I just need to get off my butt, get over my slight anxiety of exploring and get out there. In two weeks we have the National Holiday, which means a week long break from classes for us. We’re starting to plan out where we want to ... read more