Well the time had to come... after an amazing month in Shanghai, the program ended. We had a spiffy little graduation ceremony where everyone hooted and hollered for each other as we graduated from Shanghai Da Xue. There are some pics of my teachers and classmates at the graduation.
Jonas left on Friday after the graduation and we were all sad to see him go. After being gloomy for a while, we met Anthony, Sam and David who go to school in Liverpool. We invited them out for dinner and karaoke, which is always a silly time. (Pics of that too!)
On Saturday, we did... so much. Went back to Yu Yuan to pick up postcards and haggle for other random things. I even haggled for a stuffed panda for some Frenchies :] Then we picked up my coat, which is sooooo awesome and then went and got some fake purses and some Gucci stilettos. The rest of the night was spent sleeping and packing!
Sunday we packed because Lucas and I were leaving on Monday. Sunday night though, I got my nails done all silly Chinese style. I asked for white tips and got them... plus flowers with rhinestones! haha... Then we headed to the Pearl Tower to see Shanghai at night then headed to Park 97 for dinner and dancing with the Brits and Marina :]. It was a good end to the trip and I was really sad to leave. I've met so many wonderful people from all around the world, and it's so weird to think I wont ever see like 95% of them again. I missed saying goodbye to Marina in person but talked to her on the phone in the cab and we were both all teary eyed and saying how much we'll miss each other and... man! I wish the program were longer!
Coming to Kunming, I was excited about the weather, but that was pretty much it. I was still pretty upset about leaving my new friendsies when we landed. I read some of Catcher in the Rye in between plane naps and looking at the AMAZING view below. I can't even describe how awesome it was! LUSH green valleys with rivers winding through it, with as many trees and there are people in Shanghai... and that's a LOT! When I landed it was raining and my luggage was soaked, but by the time I got to the school, it had cleared up. Oh yeah, even though they SAID they'd pick me up... they didn't. So I took a cab who took me to the wrong school before the right one and then I had to wander around 'til I found someone who showed me where the international student office is. I put my bags in the holding room then turned around to see... CHRISTINA!!! I was like "KJSFHKKJGSHHJKGS!!!" and practically jumped on top of her. It was amazing luck. We then started the admissions process and were directed to where to go to get my housing. Then Jay came into the building and I was like "SHJLGJSD!!! yay!" and he slung my 30 kg luggage over his shoulder like it was nothing and walked with us to the international student hotel. Thank GOD he was there... I'm on the 5th floor, rooming with Christina, and there's no elevator. It would have taken about half an hour to get my luggage up there without him, so I am forever in his debt! After conking out for like 5 hours, Jay woke us up for dinner (haha). We went to a little place with him, an Irish guy named Eoin, and a French guy named David.
On Tuesday, we went to get Christina's passport pictures taken and ended up EATING DONUTS!!! Lucas knows how much I wanted donuts in Shanghai, so I was super glad to eat that sugary goodness. We did some more errands then met some of the guys in the Vermont group, Owen, Larry, and Justin. We went to a yummy Thai restaurant and Larry showed us a nifty skate shop with a cheap massage parlor above. They've been here for about 3 months, so we're counting on them to show us around! I have been too lazy to take pictures as of yet, but rest assured, there's plenty to come. In the meantime, look at a couple pics from the end of school... I'll post more once Lucas sends them to me!
After a couple weeks of school, we were already ready for vacation! Since Lluis was leaving this weekend and Cristina on Tuesday, a trip to Beijing was in order!
(We went to to Shanghai Science & Technology Museum too, so there's some more photos from that here... we went to the Imax!)
We took the overnight train, and I must say... we were rollin' first class. It was really smooth and we had our own compartment. We ate, watched movies and slept.. and by morning we were in Beijing.
When we got off the train, the weather felt sooooo much nicer! Shanghai is so humid, but Beijing, although we've discovered it does get just as hot, is nice and cool in the shade. We got to our hostel which is just like a hotel! Really, the beds are deliciously soft (unlike in our dorms) and it's cleaner too. Man. Cooler weather, softer beds... what's not to like? Well, the subway for one, but that's another story...
So we got to Beijing, checked into the hostel, ate some lunch, then headed down to Tiananmen Square.
It was a bit of a walk and four rickshaws came to us at once, ready to take us, but the weather was so nice compared to Shanghai we hoofed it. We took lotsa Forbidden City pics and ran around there for a while before heading back. Cristina went to visit her boyfriend, Francesco, and Lluis, Lucas and I headed to Wangfujin, which is a big street in Beijing where you can buy a lot of stuff including... SCORPIONS ON A STICK!
haha! If we weren't so full, we just mighta eaten some... We also went to the flagship Olympics store and took pictures with our favourite Friendlies - the Beijing 2008 Olympic mascots :] Then we spent the rest of the evening haggling for chatchkies, including the hats you'll see in my great wall pictures!
Day 2 in Beijing we got up early and took about an hour and a half long bus ride to changcheng - the great wall. We wore our ricepicker hats and this lady wanted to take pictures of us so we acted like superstars. Then we took a van from the bus stop to the wall with an New Zealander and... gal from Connecticut! Once there we took a rickety old gondola up
and explored the great wall. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.. it was incredible!
Going down was hilariously awesome too... we tobogganed down a giant slide that wound it's way down. Then, Lucas wasn't paying attention and wrecked into Cristina and Lluis! I was too busy being attacked by the Mongols though!
Well, we were pretty dead after that so just fell asleep while watching Goodfellas!
Our last day in Beijing we headed to the Summer Palace. It was pretty... and really far away... and really big. But ya know, it was still nice. I saw this woman taking a picture of her family there and offered (in Chinese) to take picture of all of them and they got really excited. Then a couple minutes later, they stopped us and asked if we'd pose with their kids. Being foreign in China is really fun sometimes! Anyways, we hiked up longevity hill and almost died we were so tired! The fun came whenever we were going back. We were waiting to board the bus, and if there's one thing you need to know about China, it's that they never stand in line. So here we are, like 40 people all clumped together, tired, hot and sweaty, waiting to board this bus that is inching towards us. As soon as the doors opened, it was a free for all! A little girl went flying in the air, and I was knocking over all the people who tried coming to the stop late and standing in front of me! I heard Lucas laughing hysterically as I bounded into the bus and flung myself onto 3 empty chairs to save them for Lluis and Lucas who were squeezing their way onto the bus. It was the most fun we had all day! Good thing we got the seats too, it was stuffed full of people the entire way on the 2 hour ride back to the city centre!
We got back and rested for a bit and Lluis packed up, he was leaving on Saturday. After hanging out with him everyday for 2 weeks, it was so sad saying bye to him! Lluis, I know you're reading this, so t'estimo! Lucas wants to visit Europe next summer, and I want to see an FC Barca game, so hopefully we can make it out there! Jonas, Lucas, Gabriel, Lluis, Marina and I went out to a goodbye dinner and the next night to karaoke. It was a silly time! Marina and I sang Laoshu Ai Da Mi and then we all sang random English songs... they had a bunch that I didn't expect, like Save Ferris and Ben Folds Five!
Cristina left today, and she's headed off to her first year of college so good luck to her! Things just aren't the same in China without her!!! After bidding her farewell, Jonas, Marina, Lucas and I went to the fabric market and almost threw up because it was 3 floors of tailors... ridiculousness!!! Jonas was picking up his suit and I... got a coat!!! It's being custom tailored as we speak, and I'm picking it up on Saturday. I got a "student discount" so it only ends up being about $40 USD... not bad for custom made ;] Then Lucas and I went to the mall and I went nuts and bought a lot of stuff... oh well! I've been pretty frugal thus far!
Well it was bound to happen... after 2 weeks of going from extreme heat (35 Celsius) to 23 degree air conditioning, I caught a cold. It came on this morning after I talked with the family (I miss you all so much, muchos besos!) and I went to the local pharmacy and got some Tylenol Cold and am just sitting in my room pouting while Luis, Jonas and Marina head out to Huaihai Lu to go look at all the pretty lights and stores!
The first week I was here, I was really worried that I'd let my shyness get in the way of the trip and I'd stay in my room and let the time whiz by. I'm glad that that's not the case! I've seen so many sights but now that I'm sick I for once am taking it easy and lounging in my room. Well, I guess I'll update you on how this second week went, because this weekend I'm going to Suzhou, which will deserve a post all it's own. :]
So on Monday it was ridiculously hot AGAIN so we (Cristina, Lucas, Luis, Jonas, Marina and I) decided to go ice skating after Lucas and I went to the afternoon activity of making a dragonfly out of knots.
I haven't been ice skating since freshman year of high school, but I figured it'd be like that whole riding a bike analogy. WELL. It would have been, had I remembered that you need to lace your skates up as tight as you can! So... I fell and got a sick bruise on my knee! Once Luis tightened my skates, it was so much easier! Luis was trying to take pictures and fell on his culo and a Chinese boy helped him up. When I went to get my water from my bag, the same kid tapped me on the shoulder to wave goodbye! It was kind of strange, but not so much since we're in China and being foreigners, kids love us :D. Well he, his little sister, and his brother all wanted pictures with me, so their mom took pictures of each of them with me and then all of us together. Maybe I should look into a career playing Jasmine at Disney World...! haha.. silly kiddos!
We skated for almost 2 hours and then went to a hoighty toighty Japanese restaurant where we payed a whopping $8 each for a feast. Probably the most expensive meal I've eaten here, but hey, it was yummy! Then we went to an arcade where the giant zombie game scared me :[
Well Tuesday we had tai chi and then went down to the soccer field to play. A professional team came and I took pictures of the guys playing them... yeah, they were good lol. China won. Europe/Japan lost!
Wednesday we went to see Chinese acrobatics. I thought it might be kinda lame, but it was actually really cool! People were jumping everywhere and doing all sorts of flips and crazy things, like jump roping on top of a man powered ferris wheel thing. See this globe? Like seven motorcycles were inside of it, going all over... even upside down! Craziest thing I've ever seen...
Yesterday we went to a tea lecture/presentation thing that was pretty interesting and Marina went on the stage and poured the tea all Chinese-style. My camera went dead though, so there are only like 2 pics from the tea-ness. Now I'm sick and just hanging around, hoping I get better asap! I threw some pictures into the shanghai daxue album, so checkit!
Well thank you facebook for not importing new notes... :[
With the weekend ending, I've gotta say, Shanghai is pretty nifty, except for the construction/running around with hammers being loud at 6am on the weekend! This is the scaffolding that they're putting up. Imagine looking out your window and seeing someone cling to the building next to you because they're standing on old rusty pipes... That's my view! On Wednesday I took a taxi to Nanjing Lu and walked around for about 3 hours. It was hot, and that wasn't too good of an idea! Friday was probably the best day I've had since I got here! 10 or so of us went to lunch in a couple groups Thursday and when we came back to the dorms, Jon and I found out that for the past week we were supposed to go to lectures every afternoon! It would have been nice if someone told us...! Well, Raoul was coming down the stairs and said that we were supposed to go to Tai Chi class, which was where he was headed (NORMA!!!). I was really excited, and we head over to the next building, not knowing what to expect. We started off with some Gongfu, and did a punch-kick-whirl around-slide along the floor thing. After this, we took a break and Raoul was practicing the gongfu and was making these short "whoo..!" exhale noises and pulling his fists to his sided quickly. In a Spanish-Chinese mixture, I told him it looked like he was starting a tango and we went shoulder to shoulder and stomp-danced in a circle doing the characteristic lust-death stare then whirled around and did it again in the opposite direction. Everyone started clapping and going "OOOOOH!!!" as if it was some fancy-shmancy dance move when it was really just... stomping in a circle while glaring at each other!
We initially learned 4 basic motions of tàijíquán and then our teacher added the footwork. Everything was so slight and all the directions were in Chinese, you really had to concentrate on him. It was nice though because one in a while he would walk through our lines and correct our positions, so it's not like he was just rambling on and not caring whether or not we were doing it correctly! About halfway through the session, it started raining (like it is right now... hard!) and thunder grumbled outside. By then we had developed a pretty connected routine and it was just so neat to have these lines of people silently, slowly, and carefully move through the poses, with only a "yi.. er.. san.. si..." to be heard by the teacher calling out the moves over the rain and thunder. After that, I went back to my room and got changed for the night, because a big group of us was going to go to dinner and then a disco.
Lucas, Luis and I got pizza at Daning Shopping Center while everyone else went for Chinese and we saw there were like 7 policemen and a bunch of people gathered around these two guys who had gotten into a fight and one of them knocked the other right in the eye (with an umbrella??) and he was all icky looking but seemed okay with it haha. Don't anyone worry though! There are policemen every like 50 feet and it's actually a really safe place, these guys just had beef with each other! Then after skipping and sliding around in the drizzle... We went back and met up with everyone and then ran around the subway to catch the last train to the Bund. We then walked for forever and I gave directions to some lost Americans (yay!) before getting to the club we decided not to go in to because they had a cover of 100 kuai and a dress code so it seemed lame and hoity-toity.
Jonas, who's from France, suggested a disco that he went to last weekend and we had to take 4 cabs in order to get the whole group over there! It was great though, we got a section to ourselves so we could all dance together and hang out, so it was nifty... and all the songs were in English so everyone looked on jealously as we yelled out the lyrics to all the songs! On Saturday, Luis and I got some coffee then went to the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Jin Mao Tower, the latter of which (right now) is the 5th tallest building in the world, and the tallest in China... for now anyway. Well, it was an amazing view and I'll try and put together a video of it so you can see what Shanghai looks like from it's tallest point! After that we went to the Shanghai Technology Museum metro stop... which is the new Xiangyang (fake brands) Market. We went to a stall and I haggled in Chinese for a "Chanel" purse and wallet that - after some persistence, intense haggling and threatening to walk away - I got for half the price of a purse that a girl haggling in English got... and I even got them to upgrade the wallet to a bigger one! It was actually really fun, and I might go back and buy some more stuff! They have a bunch of places selling jerseys, maybe I'll get a Messi one..!!!
Sunday, we were going to go to Hangzhou, but there weren't any trains running there. SO! We decided to see some more touristy things and go to Yu Garden and Jade Buddha Temple. It was really pretty and it was funny to see Chinese tourist guides speaking in Spanish and French. We tagged along a Spanish one for a little bit and Luis interpreted some of the things the woman was saying about the gardens. All in all it was a great place to visit, though full of tourists and with plenty of hawkers outside going "hello lady! bag? watch? dvd?" they yell random name brands at you so my new name is Chanel and Luis is now Louis Vitton! We'll just say ni hao next time they yell that at us... I had 5 blisters on my feet by the time we were done so we stopped into a pharmacy to pick up some bandaids. We were getting them and it turned out to be a traditional medicine shoppe too and the woman at the opposite counter ran over and started pointing at my leg (which has some hives on it) and said something, so I showed her the ones on my stomach and said "hen duo!" (which is "a lot!") and she ran to her counter and started excitedly pointing at a creme and talking really fast in Chinese. It was less that $2 so I thought why not, and picked it up... we'll see if it helps any :] She had a good eye though, to notice them from across the way!
The Jade Buddha Temple was also really neat, but I liked the Yu Garden better. The temple was filled with Spaniards toting around Chinese babies that they were in the process of adopting, a very common process, Luis says. He recognized the people in front of us as Valencians, who have a similar accent to his, which is Catalan. Now we're watching FC Barcelona play in Beijing and the Chinese commentators are EXTREMELY biased!!! FC Barca scored and they didn't say a word. I miss hearing "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!! GOLASO!!!! GOL GOL GOL GOL GOL!!!" ^_^
haha.. silly kiddos!
Like seven motorcycles were inside of it, going all over... even upside down! Craziest thing I've ever seen...
We went back and met up with everyone and then ran around the subway to catch the last train to the Bund. We then walked for forever and I gave directions to some lost Americans (yay!) before getting to the club we decided not to go in to because they had a cover of 100 kuai and a dress code so it seemed lame and hoity-toity.
