June 29, 2015

I had a great trip in China with my classmates, teacher and new friends! We went to Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai over the course of twelve days.

After leaving the host family, I stopped writing because there were three days left and I didn’t have time like I did when I was the family. But we went Hangzhou for a couple days and saw a show (on the water) in the West Lake. Then we went to Shang hai for two days and one night. We had the best tour guide who was named Zeke but spelled it Zich. He took us to see a really good acrobatics show. They didn’t allow us to take pictures but there were people on bikes, jumping through tiny tunnels, and people walking barrels holding flames!

My friend, who sat next to me on the plane ride coming home, said that I slept most of the time. I tried to watch some movies but couldn’t even make it fifteen minutes in. Since I almost slept through the whole 12 and a half hour plane ride, I was not tired when we got home at 11pm, so I couldn’t go to bed that night. I finally fell asleep around 3am and woke up at 5am. It took me a few days to adjust back to the time change. For about five or six days after getting home, I woke up at about 4am and started to get tired around 5 or 6pm. The next few days after that, I slowly started waking up and going to bed later like I normally did.

One of the host student’s friend, Angela, has been texting me through a free text/call app (I used it to text my friends and family). Some of her friends and the other host student’s added me and they have been talking to me. They want to talk about american TV shows, music, celebrities, and about life like school, summer, and our hobbies. It’s like Facebook where they can post their status, pictures and share other friend’s post. I scrolled through some of their posts and randomly see my name in a post or comment so I have to copy it and google translate it. I saw Happy (a host student) post something and pictures of her host student and some other host students commented, so I translated all of them. It said something like: “This is my American exchange student. She really likes the chocolate flavored ice cream. and she is bad at using chopsticks” The comments said “Yeah, my exchange student is also bad at using chopsticks” (including Angels comment about me!)

I am really glad that I went on this trip, and hopefully I will go back when I’m older!

我喜欢学习中文！我很高兴我去了中国。谢谢！

June 3, 2015

Today was my last full day with Angel and her family! On Monday and Tuesday, Angel’s father was at work overnight, so I didn’t see him that much, but he drove us to school today.

The host students took us around their campus. We went into the garage where they park their bikes. They also had ping pong tables, basketball, and some of them painted on the walls. After the tour, we left and went to a branch school. We visited a 7th grade English class where they talked about different climates in different parts of the world and how climate affects their everyday life. Even we  didn’t know how to answer that question! Then we went to another class where they preformed dances and music for us and gave us little gifts.

After lunch we went to Dr. Sun Yat Sang’s Mausoleum and the Ming Tomb. We were supposed to go there yesterday, but it rained, so we went today.

We returned to school and everyone (and our host students) went to dinner together. (All but Lily, Caleigh, and Gisele) We went to another place where each person gets their own hot pot.

After dinner, Angel and I got picked up and had to walk a million miles to get to the bus, then another long walk to get to her apartment. After I took a shower, Angel and I exchanged gifts. They gave me two books, some magnets, and a card from her parents that say things like:”I love you”, “I’m going to miss you”, and “I hope you were happy”. I gave them things with Nashville on it.

Tomorrow we will leave our host families in Nanjing and then take a train to Hangzhou.

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June 2, 2015

This morning I woke up at 4 am and texted my mom. She said it was too early and I should go back to sleep. So I did, and woke up again at about 5:00 am. I laid in bed for a while then got up to get dressed. It was raining outside so I got my rain coat and they gave me an umbrella, but it didn’t open so Angel and I had to share one. then walked to school. The rain wasn’t too bad when we got outside, but a minute into the walk it started raining really hard! Angel and I tried to share the umbrella, but it didn’t really fit over both of us. I took off my school skirt (I only brought one to China and I didn’t want it to get wet, and I had on shorts underneath) and put it in my backpack so it wouldn’t get wet. By the time we got to school I was soaked (but not my skirt!) When we walked to school today, I realized that we went a different way than yesterday. Last night, Angel asked me if walking to school was fine, and I told her yes. And she wanted to know if I would feel more comfortable going another way to school, and I told her it didn’t matter. So when we got to school, I asked her if we took another way and she said yes, it was the longer way and cleaner than yesterday. I was kind of mad because we walked 10 minutes longer in the rain.

My classmates from HH and I went to a paper cutting class. We tried cutting paper like the teacher, but we ended up either ripping the paper or cutting it backwards! We made three different paper cuttings: a snowflake, a Chinese character for double happiness and a butterfly. The teacher showed us cuttings that she did. We asked her if she sold them and said yes, 50 yuan each (about $8).

After the paper cutting class we went to the gym because we were originally supposed to go to a PE class, but it was cancelled because of the rain. We played badminton against each other for a while. Then we went to lunch and had the same thing as yesterday (chicken, fries, sprite, and ice cream). We were supposed to go to another temple, but went to the mall instead because it was raining. All of the temples were starting to look alike, so that was okay. We looked around in the shops and ate more ice cream. There were 7 floors in the mall! On the bottom floor they had an ice skating rink so we went ice skating!

We went back to the school, met our host students and went home. I had to walk back home in the rain! Angel’s mom said I could wear her crocs but I wore my tennis shoes back. I went straight to my room to change clothes. I told the family I wanted to rest a while and call my mom. I called my mom and talked to her for about 30 minutes, then I was called to dinner. They had McDonalds hamburgers, dumplings that the mom had made and watermelon. I had the dumplings and watermelon. Angels mom wanted me to eat the hamburger, but I told her I was full on the dumplings. She was happy I liked her food.

She sat down with us and showed me Angel’s baby pictures! Angel was really embarrassed, but they were cute. While Angel was talking on the phone to make plans for tomorrow with other students her mom whispered to me, “she used to be cute, but now she fat. Haha! But you are pretty”. Then we had an ice cream together (my third ice cream today!)

Tomorrow is my last full day with the host family. We are visiting a branch school and then on Thursday we leave Nanjing.

 

   

 

June 1, 2015

Today I had to wake up early because we had to get to school. I woke up again around 4:30-5:00 am and waited for about an hour. I came out of my room and Angels mother had cereal, rice, and apples for breakfast. I had a bit of everything because Angel’s mom made me eat it.

We walked to the school and it took about 10 minutes to get there. We went through a lot of alleys and streets. When we finally got to the school I didn’t see anyone from my school. There were a lot of students who go to that school! We walked up three flights of stairs to get to Angel’s classroom. When I walked in, everyone (boys and girls) huddled around and started to talk to me.”

After meeting some of Angel’s classmates, we walked down to the track. We walked to line up with the rest of the students. There were announcements and speeches by students during the meeting. When the morning meeting was over, we went to meet our teacher and go to our next activity. Two senior students were with us. We had a private calligraphy class and a brush painting class. We practiced different ways of writing Chinese characters and got to write and draw bamboo on a fan.

After that we went to lunch. They gave us a lunch card with money on it, so we could buy our food. We all had chicken, fries, sprite and an ice cream cone. Chinese students started to come to lunch so Lily, Anna, Chloe and I asked Mrs. Zhu, if we could go outside to sit. We went outside for a while and when we went back inside our class was not there! We circled around to see if they were looking for us, but we didn’t see them. We found Vicky and she took us to them.

We took a field trip to the Confucius temple. We spent about 15 minutes in the temple and 2 hours of shopping. We got Haagen-Dazs ice cream while we shopped.

We went back to the school to get picked up by our host families. I knew that I was going with Chloe and Vickys mom to do something. Chloe, Vicky and I were waiting there for a while and then I asked Vicky what we were waiting for. She said that we were waiting for Angel, but they had miscommunicated and Angel had already left school and was home studying! Vicky called her and Angel ran back to school and then we all rode the subway to Vicky’s moms work. When we sat down for dinner Vicky’s mom explained what Children’s Day was and that she was celebrating us! She ordered some dishes and they were all good. We had beef, chicken, noodles, and some sort of dumpling. Chloe and I really liked it and so we told Vicky’s mom. She was really happy we liked the food. After we finished eating, Vicky’s mom took Chloe and I to a little concert and Vicky and Angel went back to school to take a test. The concert lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes and Chloe and I almost fell asleep. Chloe wanted a video so she got her selfie stick out and held it up. I was looking around the room to see what people were thinking and everyone thought it was funny, but she didn’t care. One guy took a picture of Chloe holding her selfie stick.

After the concert we took pictures with the instruments and then went to watch someone make tea. We drank so much of the tea I couldn’t drink anymore! Chloe, Vicky’s friend and I got to try to make tea after the demonstration. We went back to Angel’s house and her mom met us at the street.

Tomorrow some of our class will be making presentations in the English class. After that, the HH students are going to do some more activities together.

May 31, 2015

This morning I woke up at 4:30. We went to KFC for breakfast. Angel asked if I wanted to go to the park with Chloe or rock climbing with Anna. I wanted to do both, but I said rock climbing because I hadn’t seen Anna or Rebecca (her host student) since we got to Nanjing. They asked me if I needed to rest, which is why at first they said just choose one activity. But then said that we can do both.

Angel told me we were going to an amusement park and I got really excited, but she meant a park where there are fun things to see (like museums and art). I was a little disappointed. We waited 45 minutes for Chloe and Anna to come. Anna came without her host student because Rebecca had something to do. We saw inside a building and then walked around. We noodles for lunch and they were really good. Then someone made tea for us in a tea house.

After lunch we asked if we could ride the two-person bikes. On the bikes were: Vicky and her dad, Angel and Chloe, and Anna and me together. We rode to get ice cream to cool us down and biked around the park. Then, we went to the Nanjing museum (this would be Anna’s third time going).

It was the three of us the whole day and our hosts. The rock climbing and archery place was in a university. Inside, there was a tight rope thing that was really fun for all of us. We tried to walk across without help and see how long we could stand in one place without falling off.

After we rock climbing, we went to archery. We put on a lot of gear and someone taught how to do it. Rebecca translated for us and it took us a while to figure how to shoot an arrow. While Chloe and Anna got the hang of it, I was still hitting their targets. But it was really fun.

We all went to dinner together. We went to a place called VieChat. It had pasta, salad, milkshakes, pizza and french fries!! Chloe, Anna, and I shared two pizzas. We got a pepperoni pizza and a sausage pizza. Anna and I had strawberry milkshakes and Chloe had a chocolate one. Anna left to go home and Chloe and I went to one of the best bookstores in Nanjing. We saw some fun little items and got gifts for some people.

Tomorrow is the first day of school (for us) and we have a calligraphy class, painting, and then go and a field trip (just HH students).

May 30, 2015

Today I woke up around 4 am (still not adjusted to the time) All of my friends were up too, so we texted about our families and what we’re going to today. After talking to them, I got dressed and packed for the day.

We walked a couple of blocks to go to breakfast. I ate steamed buns and some kinds of soups or sauces. The soups tasted okay, but I didn’t know what they were. The steamed bun had a little plate to dip it in sauce. I couldn’t use my chopsticks very well to hold the bun so I accidently dropped my steamed bun in the sauce and it splattered everywhere! It got really silent and everyone was looking at me (and knew I didn’t live here). As we were cleaning up, someone got up and handed me a fork so I could finish my breakfast.

A little boy (about nine years old) at the table next to us came up to me and wanted to practice his English. He said “hello, where do you come from?”, “you are very pretty”, “nice to meet you, goodbye”.

After breakfast we went somewhere and met Lily, Chloe and Mia and their host students. We picked out Chinese dresses to put on. I had a blue and white dress. We walked a long way to a park with beautiful plants and views where we took lots of pictures! It was really hot in the dresses, but it was fun!

Vicky (Chloe’s host) had an extra math class, so Chloe came to lunch with us. We went to a place where you cooked the food on a hot thing in the middle of the table. We had chicken and steak and vegetables and rice.

We met up with everyone else to go play the Escape game. Even though we all knew how to play it, we had a big disadvantage because of the language barrier, the clues were in Chinese, and some people did not know how to translate. My group did not escape in time. Angel had an extra class so she went home and I went with Gisele and her host.

After the game we all went to the mall to shop and eat dinner. The mall had 7 floors and an ice skating rink! We tried to find a restaurant that would fit what everyone wanted to eat. My class just wanted a bowl of rice and a sprite because we were still full from lunch. Vicky was confused that we wanted to order 6 individual bowls of rice for us.  After dinner, which lasted for 2 hours, we went to get ice cream.

I rode home with Chloe and Vicky. Angel’s parents were waiting for me when I got out. I got dropped me off in the middle of the street and we had to run across the busy road. Tomorrow I think I’m doing more stuff with Chloe and Anna.

  

  

  

  

  

May 29, 2015

Today we had to get up early so we could eat, pack, and get on the bus to see the Forbidden City. When we got to the Forbidden City, we walked around the whole place. Then, we went to KFC for lunch. They had the same food as KFC in America.

After lunch, we went to the Temple of Heaven. We weren’t there long, but we saw three temples. When we were about to leave, we saw some people with ribbons that you wave around. We watched and took pictures and videos. The woman let some of us try out the ribbons.

From there we went to the train station to go to Nanjing. Mrs. Zhu recommended that we use the restrooms at the train station because there might not be a restroom on the train. We walked in the bathroom and all of the toilets were in the ground. And we walked right back out. Some of us tried it and said they weren’t bad… so I tried it and it was probably one out of five times I used it during the whole trip.

We took the train to Nanjing. One of the Nanjing school teachers was waiting for us and drove us to the school. Angel (my host student), her mother, and her father greeted me with a big hugging me before I stepped out of the bus! They quickly took my stuff and put it into the car and drove to their apartment.

We drove about 5 minutes to their apartment and then got out into a dark alley. I was kind of scared because I didn’t know where I was. Their apartment is really small. It is about the size of my living room at home. There are three bedrooms, the bathroom is really weird, and I’m not allowed into the kitchen (?). Angel’s family is really nice to me and they are excited I’m here!

 

     

  

  

  

May 28, 2015

Today I woke up around 3 am and could not go back to sleep because I still was not adjusted to the time change. Chloe, Lily, and I went down to breakfast at the hotel. They did not have “regular” breakfast food. They had rice, soup, and tea, but I had fruit, and orange juice. (I packed granola bars for the rest of the day)

At 8:30 we left for the Great Wall of China! It was a really long drive to get there and some of us took a nap in the car. When we finally got there we all had to use the restroom. There were about 7 stalls of chinese-style toilets, and one western toilet… there was a huge line waiting for the one western toilet… all of us.

We split up into small groups and climbed the wall. There was a group of college kids that started the same time we did but got ahead of them after the first tower. Allison, Chloe and I took a break so we sat down for a while. When the college kids caught up with us, they asked us if we were a track team because we climbed so fast. We went as far as we could, but were two towers short from the “end”. Only three people from our group made it to the top (Lily, Mia and Anna).

Chloe and I started to head down and go the gift shop. We got some souvenirs including a medal that that says “I climbed the Great Wall” with our name and date carved into it.

After the Great Wall, we went “USA town” because it had Subway, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC. All restaurants in the USA, but we had Pizza Hut for lunch.

Next, we went to the Summer Palace. We had a tour and got to climb up more stairs to the top of the temple. (we got our exercise in today!) When we came back down, we took a boat across the water. On the way to dinner, we passed where the Olympics were held and the hotel where the athletes stayed. We had hot pot for dinner, which is where you cook your own food in a pot on your table.

We went to a show called “The Legend of Kung Fu”. After our long, full day of sightseeing, and exercise, we were so tired we all fell asleep in the middle of the show! I woke up one scene before it ended and looked down my row and saw everyone asleep!

Tomorrow we are going to the Forbidden City and then taking a train to Nanjing to meet our exchange students!

   

  

          

    

May 27, 2015

We all met at the airport at 4:30 am! We went through security, got breakfast at starbucks and sat at the gate. We made sure we all had each other’s wechat information (Chinese texting app.

On the plane to Detroit, we sat in 3 rows of 3 with our teacher in front of us. We had a four hour layover in Detroit so we had Chik-fil-A for lunch, explored the airport and played some card games while we waited.

After the layover, we boarded our plane to Beijing. Before we took off, we quickly rearranged our seating so we could sit next to whoever we wanted. I sat next to Chloe and Allison was across the aisle from us. We had a movie screen in front of us with a place to charge our phones! They also gave is a pillow, blanket, earbuds, and a sleep mast. During the flight, I watched four movies: “If I Stay”, “Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, “Mocking Jay Part 1”, and “The Fault in our Stars”.  As we landed in Beijing, the plane was very bumpy and Chloe and I did not feel well.

After we got off the plane, we went through security and got our luggage. We met our first tour guide, Grace. We had a bus ride from the airport to the hotel. (It was not the best car ride after a 12 hour flight). Once we picked our roommates and checked in, we all rushed upstarts to take showers and naps! After that, we went out to dinner down the street from the hotel and walked around. At dinner, we all ordered the same thing: potstickers or dumplings, rice, and a drink. (Mrs. Zhu taught us how to order sprite, so now when we order or drink we order sprite Chinese because that’s all we can order ourselves (雪碧!)

After dinner and shopping, we went back to the hotel and packed for our trip to the Great Wall tomorrow.

 

   

       

    

    

Getting ready for China!

I leave for China one week from today! I have to meet everyone at the airport at 4:30 in the morning. Then we will fly to Detroit, and from Detroit to Beiijng. We will be there for about two weeks. One of those weeks, we will be staying with a Chinese host family and visit their school. We will go to school for half a day, and then go on a field trip. I am really nervous to stay with a family in their house alone! But it will be a fun and interesting experience.

Some pictures from when they visited us: