2nd Week of Classes Done

Hey everyone! Like Krysta I want to apologize for the delay for new posts. Certain things we take for advantage in the United States can become very taxing in China. Other then the few negatives like the pollution and a few other bumps in the road everything is wonderful all eleven of us a thoroughly enjoying our time here. I feel like we have became a family already, be that a slightly dysfunctional one. As Krysta said it feel like we have been here for months and not just a week and a half. The Chinese have been so nice and accommodating to us and we have become very close to a few. Our new friend Paul (his Chinese name is pronounced Jin Ye) has been especially amazing. When we went to Beijing last weekend he come with us and helped us get around, and I am so grateful.

I’m not going to reiterate the time we all spent in Beijing since Krysta’s post summed it up very well. I will add that we all did get lost in Summer Palace, it is absolutely immense. The group I was with needed to resort to the little bit of mandarin we have picked and a playing charades to find our way out. For us that did find it to the exit our friend Paul took us to a restaurant to eat near his house where we ate the most delicious eggplant. I have always loved eggplant, but what they do to it here is magical and I must find out how to replicate it.

After the meal we went to the Olympic park and walked around. The scale of everything was so overwhelming, and beautiful. The Watercube was absolutely breathtaking. Afterwards we made out way back to the hostel where we hoped to find our lost counterparts. Once we found out everyone was safe it felt like a weight was lifted from all of us and we went to sleep to get ready for the Great Wall.

After the wall we had to make our way back to Tianjin exhausted and in desperate need for a shower. After a bus ride and a walk we reached our campus where we were greeted by the scent of the neighboring pig farm. Which in this case brought on the sense that we were home and could get so rest and unwind.

Then it was back to classes, which honestly for the most part are very boring. The Chinese students though are very attentive and quite. We noticed that none of the doodle or fidget with anything during the class. Also the teachers single us American students out from the class and sometimes it sees they are teaching to us instead of the whole class.

Recently a few students from France have moved onto the same floor as us and have fit in well. It amazing how many different languages are now flying around on our floor; English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean. This experience is definitely going to make us all appreciate the different cultures and make us more global intuned.

That brings us up to date I wanted to leave you the view from my window since today the pollution isn’t so bad and you can actually see the building that are usally hidden.