Day 32- Unimpressed...mostly

WARNING- I haven’t been dead for the past week and some change. I just didn’t have access to my blog in China (Repressed by the government. Curses!) so I’m transferring my blog posts from my journal to blogger and adding pictures. AS SUCH, in order to get a good grasp of the timeline…GO TO DAY 31 FOR THE START OF CHINA OTHERWISE YOU WILL MISS OUT ON SOME PRETTY INTERESTING STUFF. Ahem. So there.
So, we woke up in the morning- or rather I woke up and then proceeded to wake up Campbell and Albert (the latter of which actually had an alarm clock in his room going off every five minutes).

Breakfast was alright, just a roll with an egg and yogurt. I gave someone else the egg and proceeded to eat the bread. The bread tasted different- it had these pieces of special rice in it that gave it some kind of flavor that made it quite sweet.
After breakfast, we went to “class.” Now, the quote marks are there not because it took place in a class room, but because I do not honestly believe that the instructors at Xian Liverpool actually expect us to remember anything.
We had a few group presenters on various aspects of Chinese culture: the gardens, the food, the canals, etc. Then, after about a five to ten minute Powerpoint presentation, the group of fourteen of us was split up and we were given sheets of paper to memorize and present on the topics. I had the gardens, which was alright by me. The girl sitting next to me was Korean, but I hadn’t seen her before. Her name that she chose for her English name (which was also her baptism name) was Veronica. She was very friendly and as Miranda had been a little standoffish today (though this may be due to lack of sleep- everyone was tired), I’d talk to her instead.

Veronica (not Betty) was especially cheerful and while she wasn’t especially…endowed, she was certainly attractive, though in a cute way. She worked with me with my Korean language skills (or lack thereof) and I picked up some things here and there.

After class we were guided by our “team leader” Tony who was Chinese (mentioned before). Tony…seemed to be the officious type, kind of a spaz, which later proved to be true on numerous incidents.
Lunch was some kind of Cashew Chicken at a local restaurant. It was fantastic and it was paid for by the university. Win. Even better still, the restaurant had it ready in advance (the school probably called or something) so that when we walked in the door…boom…it was there.

Also, for those of you wondering who was part of our group, here is the list:
Jim
Nancy
Albert
Cambell
Libby
Jane
Jihoon (Hanyang Student coming to ONU next year)
Mi-ye (twenty-something administrator from Hanyang who came with us to China)
Veronica
Veronica’s Mom (Korean woman in her 50s or so)
Mike (kid from Ithica)
Yours Truly

Anyways, just use that as a roster for later adventures. We later went to this park near China which overlooked a lake of sorts. While this may sound cool, it honestly wasn’t. It looked like Lake Metroparks…any part of it that touches Lake Erie. Water, small dock, city by the lake. It just wasn’t that impressive. Here are a few pictures:



See? Not that interesting. We later had dinner after grabbing some coffee and me, wanting to talk to Veronica asked her about various Korean terms. There are different terms for someone in your age range based on your age and gender. For example, I could call a girl older than me “nuna” (which means ‘sister’) or a guy older than me “heng” (brother). So, I asked her what I should call her. She said, without hesitating “dongseng” (younger, literally). I laughed and said she didn’t even know how old I was (so she wouldn’t know which to call me). She shook her head and answered that she was thirteen. Whoops. There goes that relationship opportunity.

The evening fared better with me. We went to this shopping center called “Times Square.” Yes, you read that correctly. It had some cool western shops and some amusing engrish (you read that correctly) but the real draw was the 500 meter TV screen above the shopping center. I included a few pictures, but you would have to be there to appreciate the amazingness of it. Yes, it was just that cool.


-Reven