南京欢迎你！

I finally made it to Nanjing!

This morning I moved into my dorm, which surprisingly is very nice! I don't have a roommate yet, but I'm hoping tomorrow will be the day. The Beard's roommate is a girl from Korea named Duo Wei, and she is awesome. I was singing Bad Romance (Bon Jovi Romance if you are Rachel Willis) and she promptly began singing Poker Face and informed me that she would accompany me to the clubs for some serious dancing, my kind of girl.

We ate some amazing dinner tonight (This is for the Qingdao crew) it was 红烧茄子和土豆片儿

That's right, get jealous.

The dorm used to be a hotel, and its nice to see they take safety seriously------------->





I will have a real post when something awesome happens, which I'm hoping will be tomorrow. So far all I can say is that Nanjing is amazing, and this next four months is going to be insane. More pics of the city to come...

I couldn't make this up.

Let me start out by saying, that if I can't get through my troubles with men back in the states, at least I have this homeless guy I met in the park today. I'm telling you people I couldn't make this up if I tried.

The Beard and her Mom decided to go to the FedEx office today, so I decided it would be a good time to explore Zhongshan Park, right next to my hotel. It was about 10am, so the park was full of very old people doing their traditional crouching tiger hidden dragon exercises. I stumbled upon a group of about 75 people doing the tango in the middle of the park. I wanted to video it so bad, but I felt the eyes of hundreds of Chinese baring into my soul, so I decided against it and walked on. I figured looking at the map of the park would be a good idea, and boy was I right.

Right this way to Fun Dazzle Ladies and Gentlemen.

As I was attempting to find this elusive Fun Dazzle, a very old, very dirty Chinese man caught my eye, he shouted hello, and I did the same. Mistake number 1. Keep in mind the exchange I'm about to tell you about happened completely in Chinese, and his accent was basically impossible to understand. He asked if I could speak Chinese, and I said yes. Then He asked if we could walk and chat, again I said yes. Mistake number 2.

This man fell in love with me. I don't know why I can't attract men in the States, but every greasy homeless man in China wants to make me his bride. So we're walking, and he is questioning me about my life, and he tells me that he is a philosopher. Hmmmm. Really?

We sit down in the Bamboo grotto (yes, the Bamboo grotto) and he tells me that I will be his first foreign girlfriend and he can be my first friend in Shanghai. He then proceeds to tell me the teaching of Confucious, and that I should study them, and then fully understand Chinese culture. I felt like I was reading the philosophy chapter of last semester's chinese textbook. He then goes on to ask me if we can exchange letters, again I answer yes. I don't know why. He laments that surely my parents will not approve of our age difference, but that he just wants to be my friend and that there is nothing wrong with that right?

For some reason I think it is a good idea to keep going down this path, and we continue talking. Throughout the course of our 15 minute conversation. He invites me to his house, invites me go eat food, and invites me to go drink tea. When I refuse every time, he asks me why I don't trust him. While I wanted to say because I can count your teeth on one hand, but what I really said was that American culture was to not trust strangers. We walked together to go get a pen and paper so he could give me his address, all the while he tells me why he has never married a chinese woman, and that I am the prettiest foreigner he has ever seen ( he loved my pale skin, go figure)

Finally, he gave me his address and we parted ways. I felt strangely sad as I watched him walk away to creep on the next nice person who can't say go away. And for all you doubting Thomases out there. Here is the address for my future husband, Mr. Zhang Cheng something or other.



I think I will try again later to find the Fun Dazzle, I'll let you know how it goes.

An epic day at 豫园。

Hhhhmmm, the smell of garbage, people spitting all around you, creepy men calling out, "hey rady, you want buy bag, louis vitton, gucci, you want buy?"...Must be a market in China.

Today we ventured to the beautiful Yuyuan to 讨价还价 a little bit. It was decorated for chinese new year and it looked awesome.

I finally found a store with the Mao Zedong painting that I wanted so much, and argued with the shop keeper for about 15 min, finally getting her to cut the price in half. I obviously employed the fool proof bargaining tactics we learned last summer. Oh, Dr. Lin would be so proud. Then as we ventured further down the road, we came across the greatest thing I have ever seen in China, Ladies and gentlemen I give you: Obama Mart.



As we ventured past Obama Mart, we were accosted by a group of very annoying people who wanted us to go with them to look at pearls. As we tried to ignore them, I mistakenly told one of the women I spoke Chinese, so she followed us down the street for about 5 minutes, going off in rapid fire crazy chinese, and people were actually gathering around us to watch me speak to this woman. Finally I got her to leave us alone, but the man was not convinced we didnt want the pearls, so he continued to follow us, saying things like "look rady, its no problem, you forrow me."

Finally, I flipped out. I feel bad about it now, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. I think he was a little dejected as he left us, but I was victorious, and thats all that matters.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, thank you jet lag, so I'm getting tired, I might need to refuel later with some delicious greul. Also, my camera broke today, of course. Its off to 百息买 (Best Buy) to attepmt to replace it. We head to Nanjing in a few days to start class! More to come soon.

"Hey Lady, you want buy an Abercrombie?"

So I made it to Shanghai alive. The Beard and I may be delirious from lack of sleep, but we tried to enjoy the day. We wanted to have the most Chinese experience we possibly could, so of course we went to Best Buy, McDonalds, and Starbucks. Much to my surprise, I have found that I actually can still speak Chinese. This post is lacking, but I haven't really done much to tell you about. I just wanted to write to let ya'll know we are alive.

I'm getting rather hungry, and I think I already found where I will be dining tonight.






Oh China, how I love you.

Pre-departure Jitters.

Two weeks and counting until I finally depart to spend my semester in China! I am slightly nervous considering the fact that I will most certainly fail at Chinese since I haven't looked at it since approx. last December. After spending last summer in Qingdao, I've decided that I didn't see or do weird enough things for such a weird country. I hope ya'll enjoy my bizarre tales of the coming few months in China. Also, make sure you follow the blogs of my fellow Crofties in China and in South America. Wish me luck as I make the horrible trek across the pacific ocean in two weeks, because to save on costs, I've decided to take this boat to China.




Kidding.