GleeK Off!

I didn't post at all this past week just because I didn't do anything and was busy doing work! I thought it was going to be an easy week since we had test last week... I was wrong.

I love being roommates with Heather! I slept so well all week long. I also did more work than I was doing before, which is obviously a very good thing.  We also decided we would watch one hour of news a night in chinese, well see how long that lasts!

Tonight Katie, Laura, Heather and I decided not to go out since tomorrow night is Halloween!

Heather and I drank wine and watched Glee for awhile. Then I had the brilliant idea to have a GleeK Off against Laura and Katie! We told them we had a surprise for them and it would be ready in 30 minutes.

Heather and I did Don't Stop Believing and Say a Little Prayer. We had the correct costumes and everything. Probably one of the more childish things we have done in Beijing, but it was so much fun!

When we were finally ready we went into their room and did it. Then they made their own dance to Telephone and did it for us. They definitely won... but I am convinced that they made it up at Tufts last year!

Tonight was a lot of fun! There aren't any pictures of the GleeK Off, just really embarrassing videos of us!

Back to reality...

This morning we arrived in Beijing at 7:15am.  We didn't get back to campus until around 9am.

Right when we got back Chloe asked me if I would help her move all of her desk stuff into my old room. I did that and then completely unpacked and set everything up in my new room!!! Including my new painting!!

When I was done Heather and I got an early lunch and then put Glee on and fell asleep for hours.

I woke up around 3 to Katie delivering me flowers! My and Wilson's one year was on the 23rd and he sent me flowers :)!

After I showered, did some work, then we went to get baozi to go and headed to our business class. The class ended up going until 8pm. So it was 2.5 hours instead of 3 but it felt like FOREVER because I was still so tired!



Here are pictures of my new room :)...

My bed

Now I am off to bed in my new room!

My desk and the really cool wall decoration we put up!

We both know, that you know, that I know that I LOVE Nanjing!

This morning Heather and I woke up around 10:30. Last night we got back to the hotel we ended up watching the first 3 episodes of Glee with Perry and Jiahua. So we didn't end up going to bed until 1!

Heather, Jiahua and I went to this cafe called 68degrees. It was SO good. They had croissants, all sorts of bread, smoothies, hot chocolate, etc. I ordered so much for breakfast.

After we watched a movie on HBO at the hotel until everyone was ready to go to Dim Sum around one. The restaraunt was right around the corner from our hotel. When we got there they said they had no more food. We found out that Dim Sum is more of a breakfast thing...

We saw this one restaurant that looked pretty good, so we looked at the menu and decided to eat there. It was DELICIOUS! We ordered spring rolls, noodles, rice, fish, beef, chicken and these rolls stuffed with pumpkin. The spring rolls were my favorite!

After lunch we went to the day market and walked around for hours. We bought more movies and TV series. I also bought decorative chopsticks, this hand warmer thing and a small backpack.

We went back to the hotel around 4. We all chipped in and paid to have the room for the rest of the day. We weren't leaving until 8pm so we wanted to be able to go back and shower/change before the train.

McDonalds was for dinner... we didn't have much time and we were all craving real chicken. It's so sad that we all go to McDonalds to get real chicken.

At 8 we left for the train station. Our train didn't leave until 11:16pm, so we had a lot of time to kill in the train station.

We made friends with this little boy who gave us little paper cut outs. Then we played some card games to kill the time.

I absolutely LOVED Nanjing. I would absolutely live there if I got a job, especially teaching little asians!

Nanjing- Day 1!

Last night we left for Nanjing from the Beijing South Railway Station. It is definitely the nicest train station in Beijing! It took around an hour and a half to get there from Beida. We got there around 8pm and had until 9:30pm. We were all starved so a bunch of us got McDonalds. Heather and I paid for Tom's McDonalds since we owed him from the night he served as "Bank of Tom".

Thankfully we had soft sleepers both ways this trip! And the train was SO much nicer. They had tvs in each room. Heather, Katie, Laura and I shared a soft sleeper.

We now have more close friends! There names are Mariel, JiaHua and Perry. They hung out with us for awhile in our room. We drank wine in celebration of Heather and I becoming roommates. Then we went to sleep around 11:30.

This morning we arrived in Nanjing at 5:49am! SO SO SO early, especially after a week of not much sleeping and a lot of studying. We arrived at our hotel around 6:30am. We weren't able to check in until noon, but CIEE was able to get 5 rooms for us to use to clean up and change for the day.

We had breakfast in the hotel.... "breakfast". It's a good thing I like hard boiled eggs now otherwise I would have only eaten fried bread. I was so excited when I saw that they had orange juice.... until I was filling my cup and my hand was super hot. Of course... the orange juice is hot, the chinese LOVE hot drinks. Totally makes since?

After breakfast around 9:30 we went to the Zhongshan Mountain National Park. There we had free time to explore around on our own. Our tour guide told us that we should definitely go to the Linggu Pagoda and climb to the top to see the view. We (we includes our new friends!) decided to follow her advice.

The park was very cool and relaxing. We passed a lot of neat things, including the "roundest of holes". When we got to the Linggu Pagoda we only had about 30 minutes left until we had to meet back with the whole group.

The Pagoda had 9 floors! We first stopped at each floor and looked out but by the 4th floor we decided it would be best to go all the way to the top. We climbed 8 floors of spiral stairs. I was completely out of breath by the time we got to the top. It was totally worth it though! The view was absolutely gorgeous.

On our walk back to meet up with everyone we passed this guy who was melting glass to make different sculptures/animals. It was very cool, so I bought a glass pig!

Once the whole group was together we got on these little trains to go to lunch. Oh and it was raining all day long... so we were all freezing! The weather forecast said it was going to be 60 and sunny... lies. I guess the weathermen in China are just as great as the ones in the states!  Anyways... lunch was great! my favorite dish was qiezi which is fried eggplant. Who would have thought?

After lunch we went to this "bird farm". Honestly, I am TERRIFIED of birds. Big or small, birds scare me so much. So the entire time I just stood at the top, frightened the entire time. Almost everyone else was in the grass feeding the birds and the birds would fly on them and just sit on their shoulder, head, back, head, etc.

When everyone finally had had enough time playing with the birds (I had fun watching), we went to Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum.  In order to get to his Mausoleum we had to walk up a billion stairs. So we made it fun and took a lot of pictures, including ones of us jumping. The Mausoleum wasn't that cool (sorry Sun Ya-sen).  However, the view from the top was gorgeous!

We got back to the hotel around 4pm. Heather and I were roommates :). We all decided to nap and then get dinner at 8pm.  We all agreed on going to Henry's Home Cafe and were so excited. The cab driver dropped us off and pointed across the street. So we walked over to find out that it wasn't there anymore. All the other restaurants around were really expensive so we decided to just go back by the hotel and have dinner.

After dinner we went to the night market that was right by our hotel. It was GREAT! This night market had all the movies and TV series you could possible want. And the most expensive TV series was $4. I bought soooo many... One Tree Hill, The OC, Friends, True Blood, the Twilight series and many more!

We left the night market around 10pm, absolutely exhausted! Tomorrow we are going to try to get Dim Sum and then go back to the market (it's also a day market... conveniently!).

It's been a GREAT day!

I AM DONE WITH MY FIRST TESTS!!! I had Hanyu this morning. It was not terrible, but it took me the entire time. I was so exhausted by the end of it!

Chandler told Heather and I that we are able to switch rooms we just have to talk to Chloe and Liz first!

Before talking to Liz, Heather and I sat in Laura and Katie's room debating what to say to Liz. I guess there really is no nice way of saying we want to switch rooms. So eventually we just got up and went into my room to break the news...

The two of us sat down on my bed (of course by this point I was sweating... SO nervous!). Heather told Liz we had something awkward to talk to her about... and she immediately knew and was fine with it!

Now it was time to talk to Chloe... we brought Chloe in to my room and told her the situation. She was also fine with it. She said she wouldn't be able to move out until next Friday, so we told her we would just move all of her stuff for her except for her desk. She was fine with that... it made it easier for her anyway!

By 3:30pm Heather and I had moved all of Chloe's stuff out and all of my stuff in to her room (now MY room!!). Then we went to Wumei and bought decorations for our new room to make it feel all homey. I'll post pictures of my new room later next week!

At 6:30pm we have to meet the CIEE bus because we are all going to Nanjing this weekend! So I am off to go pack my things and get some dinner before we head out.

Test Week... October 18th-21st

This week was test week! Well I still have my Hanyu test tomorrow. But,  I was so busy all week so I never had the opportunity to update my blog. I also had nothing too exciting to write about since I was studying all week long!!!!

On Wednesday for lunch we had Chinese Table. We went to a Korean restaurant on campus and ate with the laoshis ("teachers"). Any food that isn't from the cafeteria tastes delicious!

Heather and I have started studying at Starbucks now. We've realized that doing work in our room, especially studying for big tests, is not going to work.

I think my kouyu test went well.  It was very nerve-racking though. She gives you a picture 5 minutes before it is your turn and you have to come up with a 10 sentences story. The test is just with the teacher. I had to make sentences with certain grammar points, say sentences from the text correctly and explain what 5 different characters meant... using chinese!

One of my words was park... to me a park is where kids go and play with their moms or friends. But... to the chinese it is where you go and play soccer. Of course... so I don't think I got that word right!

Oh and also... Heather and I went to the CIEE office on Monday to see if we could switch rooms and become roommates! They told us they would get back to us so we will see......

Now I need to get back to studying since my hanyu test is tomorrow!

A very non-productive day...

This morning I woke up around 11am. I needed to have woken up earlier to get a head start to have a very productive day of studying at The Bridge Cafe. Of course after a night like last night that was not going to happen...

Laura, Katie, Heather, Kathy and I left for the bridge around 12:30pm. It was ABSOLUTELY packed. I guess everyone had the same idea since most of us have our first big tests next week!

For lunch I ordered the American Breakfast (French Toast, Bacon, and Eggs). It was delicious!! I love American breakfast. The Chinese have no idea what they are missing out on!

To be honest... I barely got anything done at The Bridge. I was so tired the entire time and really just wanted to go to sleep. We all ended up leaving around 4pm. Katie and Laura picked up a Pyro Pizza to bring back to the dorm for dinner. It was obviously delicious. On Sundays from 2-5pm you can order a large pizza for the price of a medium. AMAZING :).

I am going to head to bed early tonight so hopefully tomorrow I will have a more productive day studying! I have my kouyu (speaking) test on Thursday and my hanyu (reading) test on Friday!

We only have two big tests during the semester for each class so I really need to do well.