ABROAD IN
Saturday July 15th: This morning, I woke up at 6:30 am to go running with Alexandra. We decided to meet at 7:30 at Xuanwu Lake which is this really gorgeous man made lake that I've visited with my host siblings once before. I'd only seen it at night, but I saw a lot of people running there when I visited so we thought we would try running it in the morning. I planned to leave my house at 7 and to take the bus to this large dome (my sisters told me where the station is, etc.) but when I told my mom my plan the morning of, she told me to take the subway. That was because I was meeting Alexandra at the big gate, and not at the dome (which is like 25 minute walk away). After brushing my teeth, I left the house at about 7:05. I was late because I still had to eat breakfast at the market down next to my apartment. My mom ordered my food by phone, so I went down there and asked for some wonton soup and they gave me some. I had a good little conversation with the shop owners; they are super sweet. We laughed about all the mosquitos here in Nanjing, and they were actually really fun to talk to. It was already 7:12ish and I knew I was going to be late so I asked them if I could take my soup to go. They quickly bagged it for me and I said goodbye to them and literally ran to my subway stop. It's about a 20 minute walk so I ran to it (which was pretty much a workout) and caught the subway. I had to transfer lines, and on the second subway I wanted to eat my soup so I sat down and started drinking my soup. When I did, everyone around me started looking at me. I lowkey started laughing but I kept eating because I didn't want to waste my food. I quickly got off the subway and met Alexandra and her host parents at the park. Her host parents are really fit and are super nice. They went walking around on their own while we went running. Alexandra and I started running but we had frequent stops because it was sooo hot. It was in the 90s. I bought some cold water in a vending machine which is one thing miss very much about America (China doesn't really have cold water). After our run, I quickly took the subway back home, while Alexandra went back home with her family. I was planning to meet my friends at Xinjiekou at 10, and it was already 8:50 so I went home to take a quick shower and change clothes. I walked back out the house at about 10 and got to xinjiekou at about 10:30 via subway. But I couldn't find anyone for a while. Everyone was kind of lost and didn't know where everyone else was. I called a few of them, but it's hard to navigate while you are on the phone and the phone kept cutting out. After about 25 minutes of wandering aimlessly and talking to my friends on the phone, we finally all met up and went around shopping. They're all hilarious and super fun to be around. As we shopped we also went to McDonald's and I had 2 ice cream cones (total was less than 1 dollar USD!!) because they were not really filling. It was getting to be around lunch time so we all went to KFC where I got some popcorn chicken, fries and some pepsi. The fries at KFC were kind of stale but the popcorn chicken was surprisingly good! It totaled to be about 3 dollars USD. It was hard to find seats so Josie, Alexander and I sat near eachother and sat there for nearly an hour talking. Also, Anushka and Josie's host sister tagged along, along with Josie's host sister's crush. They both like eachother but the whole time they didn't talk to eachother. It was really funny because at one point we asked the boy if they were boyfriend and girlfriend and he was smiling and said "hmmm ask her" and he pointed back at his crush. After lunch we split back up and Alexander, Peter and I went to 夫子庙 (Confucious Temple). Also, these two girls (maybe 19?) saw Alex and literally started giggling with eachother, so I told him and he waved to them and they freaked out. They waved back, then practically ran away. Some Chinese people love foreigners hahah. Anyway we split up with the others because they had previous plans. We took the subway to fuzimiao and it was really cool! Mostly shops and stores. We didn't actually go into the temple because it costed money and we didn't want to spend money but we walked around the stores and I bought some hello kitty pens for my host sisters because they LOVE Hello Kitty. There is also this really gorgeous river that passes through fuzimiao and you can ride a boat across it. I definitely want to do that at night because it apparently fuzimiao is lit up and gorgeous at night. It was really hot at fuzimiao, so at 3 we all took a break inside. We were also really tired. We found this random building and went inside and found some seats. There, other families were also sitting and these Chinese kids came up to us and said "hello!". They were in elementary school and pretty much just sat by us and when we would ask them questions they would answer. We left after 20 minutes and checked out some more stores. As we were walking through this one store, these 2 women shop workers (20s?) were kind of smiling and following us around. Peter told me he heard them whisper 英文 (English). Another instance was that when we were walking down the shop alleyways, I saw out of the corner of my eye this shipowner (maybe 20?) looking at me, and then him telling his coworker, and then both of them looking at me. I looked over at them and he said "hi!" with a wave so I smiled back and they smiled back too. I think around 3 people physically said hi to us that day. After walking through the bargaining stalls and not finding anything, we met up with Emma and Jessica who met us at the temple. There we did some more walking and went to this candy store that was kind of expensive and not too impressive. Peter and I both were a little bit tired and had to be back for dinner so we left at about 4:45 and took the subway home. I realized on my way home that I promised my host family I would make them spaghetti. I went down this sketchyish alley on my way home because I saw a convience store. I found no spaghetti sauce or spaghetti noodles but luckily my mom saved me because she called me and told me that she would take us out for dinner tonight. This is officially my last night with my host family :(. They were super sweet but I'm excited to see how these next 3 weeks pan out with my new host family. When I met my new host family the first day I came here, they seemed super excited and talkative, so I'm pretty excited! My mom called me and told me to meet her downstairs because she was going to take me out to eat. Because my sisters weren't home, (they went to see their cousin who was visiting) my mom and I went to this 水饺 dumpling place and had blood duck soup (Nanjijng's specialty). Blood duck soup kind of sounds gross but it's actually pretty good. It's in broth and the blood is solidified and has the same look as tofu (but it's a dark purple brown color). My mom hooked arms with me on the walk to dinner and was saying how she's going to miss me when I'm leaving. She jokingly said that she's going to cry. She also said that if I'm not happy at my new host family, to tell Margie and come back to her house. She was telling me how she asked the next host family if they could pick me up tomorrow evening instead of tomorrow morning, but they wouldn't let her. Also, she told me that the wonton soup I had this morning was free! The shop owners gave it to me for free because my mom told me they said they liked me. Perks of being a 外国人. After dinner we went to some stores and went shopping. My mom told me she would buy me this denim skirt that I was looking at the other day but the store was closed so we didn't buy it. My sister called me and it turns out that my sisters cousin made us some food and some dinner. So we went back home and greeted them. My sisters, my sisters cousin, her dog, and her boyfriend were all there. My sisters cousin made some really good food, but it was really spicy. I was dying a little because it was so spicy. She also made Coca-Cola chicken, which I've had at home in America before. My sisters cousin and her boyfriend talked a lot to me in Chinese. It was so fun to talk to them; they were so relatable and so easy to talk to. They were really friendly too and wanted to talk. We talked a lot about education differences between America and China and about dogs and driving in China. China's education system is extremely harsh; it's crazy. High schoolers start school 6:30 and leave school at 10 pm. High schoolers literally have no time to do what they want to do. In America, I think school is hard, but compared to students here, school in America sounds so easy. We have so much free time. But, I really enjoyed their company. I feel like my Chinese gets better with these complicated conversations. I don't understand all of what their saying, but it's still fun to talk to 25 year olds about intellectual and real things. We also talked about random stuff and laughed about how Chinese people aren't very natural in that they dye their dogs hair and their education system is too harsh. They stayed for a good 2 hours. It was about 10:30 when they left, and it is currently 11:30. I am trying to start my homework but it is so late and I am really tired. Tomorrow morning I am switching host families so I want to try to finish some tonight, but I might just go to bed.
**I accidentally deleted my photos, so I only have 2
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Andrea 施安雅17-year-old XC runner and boba tea lover living in Seattle but studying abroad in China. Also, I have a cat! Archives
August 2017
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