Back in a routine

Feb. 23^rd – Feb 26^th

This week all runs together. Because there wasn’t a lot that happened. It rained all week and it was cold (in the 40’s). We went to classes, did homework, watched the episodes or Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice from last week since we missed them while we were in Harbin. Did I mention that it rained all week. I hate the rain. It makes me want to do nothing productive.

On Tuesday we thought we needed to celebrate Mardi Gras a little bit so we bought a couple of cases and drank and played card games in the guys room.

On Wednesday, after class and homework, I went into the city for an Ash Wednesday mass. I went to an English service because those were the only mass times I could find online. It took about an hour to get into the city taking the subway. I took a taxi to the subway station and got on line 5. Line 5 is slow and aboveground. Then I switched to line 1 and took that to the church. The church was very large, not a pretty church but it looked old. The service was pleasant; a lot of people were there.

On Thursday a few of us ate dinner with one of the Chinese students in our materials class. He is such a sweetheart. It was fun to talk to him.  After dinner and wasting some time on the computer we went over to a building on campus, which is similar to a rec-center. We were going to try and go bowling but the wait was too long so we went upstairs to look at the KTV on campus and they said that they did not have English songs.  At this point we ran into some French exchange students. I had met one of them previously but we all started talking and we found out that it was one of their birthdays. So we had to celebrate some how. We again went and bought some cases and started by drinking in the conference room that is on the first floor of our dorm. This didn’t last long. The woman that was working in the dorm told us that room was for studying so we moved the party up to the 5^th floor (the guys floor) and we all gathered in the floor kitchen. It was wonderful to meet more exchange students. They were from all over France but they all go to school together at the same college. They too are engineers. Something that they kept doing that was just cracking me up was that they would talk in English with a really strong French accent. It was absolutely hilarious because they were doing it on purpose and they were slightly mocking themselves. They also taught us a French song that they sing on birthdays…among a group of friends. We butchered it but everyone had fun with that.  Everyone was so happy to meet other people. It was a great night.

On Friday Caitlin and I went to a forum that the SJTU students were having. The girl that I had met in the canteen asked us to go. It was SJTU students talking about their experiences studying abroad. When I got there Liu Yancheng asked me to say something about my experience. It was very informal but it lasted forever, people kept talking and talking. After we left there all of us went into the city for a night at a club. We went to a place on the Bund called de la coast. It was really crowded but a lot of fun. One of our Chinese classmates came with us. We all danced and had a great time. It was a great to be back in the city, there was just one slight problem. The subways close at 11PM and don’t open again until 6AM so we had to stay in the city all night. We did not want to pay for a taxi back to Minhang because it would have been close to 150RMB. The club closed around 3AM so we still had a lot of time to kill. We knew of a great American Diner in downtown that we had no been to yet so we decided to head over there for some breakfast. It is called City Diner on Tongren Lu, and it was fantastic!!! The portions were bigger than a traditional American big breakfast portion, and it was comparable to American prices. After breakfast we just went into a couple of different bars that were still open on Tongren lu. One of which had a foosball table so we played that for a while and then realized that the subway was going to open soon so some of us left and started our hour-long journey back to Minhang. At first the subway was completely empty and then we got to People’s square to make our first line change and it was already packed it was only about 6:30AM on a Saturday and there were people everywhere! I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t really start to feel tired until we got onto the subway…and then it hit me, so I napped a little on the way back to Minhang. We made it back to campus around 7:30AM and I immediately crawled into bed. 

The Last day in Harbin

Sunday Feb 22^nd…

Our last day in Harbin and we got all of the attractions out of the way yesterday so we slept in a little bit and stayed warm for as long as possible. We had to check out of the hotel by noon but they held our backpacks for us all day so we didn’t have to worry about carrying them around the city.

Kevin lost his wallet. He was hoping it was at the USA bar so after lunch at a little local place him and Josh went to look for it. Caitlin and I just hung out for a while and then heard that they were having a celebratory beer since they found it, so we decided to join them. At this point the day was dwindling quickly since we had to leave around 4:30PM to get to the airport in time for our flight. So we had a couple of beers and played a couple hands of euchre, which Kevin and I won J and then headed back to the hotel to get our bags. We got taxis and headed to the airport.

When we got back to the Hongqiao airport the line for the taxis was ridiculous! We waited in line for about 45 minutes just to get a taxi. There were some people offering rides for triple the price of what is should be…it wasn’t worth it so us to we just waited in line. I cannot get over how many people were in this line!

Overall it was a great trip. We saw so a lot! We are very lucky to have the opportunity to travel and explore the other side of the world.

It was nice to see a blue sky for a couple of days. No smog, no gray, just crystal clear! Also it was nice to have a little bit of winter. I am so use to having winter and this year I completely bypassed it except for the 2 weeks I was in WI for Christmas break. But nothing in the world could have prepared us for how cold it actually was in Harbin.

Harbin Ice & Snow festival

Saturday February 21^st…

Today there was no sun, it was cloudy, freezing cold, and snowed on and off.

We started off the day by going to the Siberian Tiger Park. Last time I was in Harbin I went to this park. The cool, and very sad thing about this place was that you could buy live animals (For example; Chickens and goats) that would be realeased during your bus ride through the Tiger Park and you would watch the tigers kill these animals. I know it sounds horrible and how could that be fun. It was awesome. Yes it is probably against animal rights, yada yada yada, but how do these animals survive in the wild?!?! In any case we were all really excited to go see the tigers hunt. When we got there they weren’t selling any live animals because of the winter youth game event that was going on in Harbin. They said they didn’t want to offend any foreigners-offend foreigners; it is a tourist trap that is what we wanted to see as foreigners. So it was a big disappointment but it was still really neat to see the tigers. Most of them didn’t seem to be phased by the brutally harsh temperatures.

After seeing the tigers we went over to Sun Island to see the huge snow sculptures. The main walkway was just lined with huge snow sculptures that have been there for over a month already. Some of them must have been +25 feet tall. The detail was incredible. I cannot even give these sculptures justice by describing them. They were absolutely spectacular. A work of art for sure! We wandered around there for a long time. Some of my favorite sculptures were; the train, they had a huge sculpture of a locomotive. It was awesome! Also, I really liked the Beijing Olympic collage sculpture and the log cabin town, with the trees surrounding the cabins and everything. It was so neat to walk around this park and just be surrounded by these sculptures everywhere that you look. 

As night started to fall we left Sun Island to go to the official Ice & Snow Park. We were originally told that it was better to see the snow sculptures during the day and the ice at night…so that is what we did and I was not disappointed for a second.

It’s hard to say what was more impressive the huge snow sculptures everywhere or an entire town made of ice. The Ice & Snow Park was incredible. It was lit with neon lights. There were just stacks and stacks of ice blocks on top of each other and shaped to create some amazing architecture. Everything was huge!!

There was a dance party going on about an hour after we got there. Yes a dance party on ice. The guys were really breaking it down! Haha. There were a number of Ice Slides but one in particular really stands out. The people at the top get you situated in a slide; they tuck in your arms and tell you to lie down. This slide gets some speed. It is made of complete ice and is extremely narrow, I hit my elbows a couple of times. As I gained speed going down I began to wonder how I was going to stop, and then before I knew it I was in a pile of snow. They have a pile of snow stacked up as the stopper. So you fly full speed in to this pile of snow. It was so much fun! Everyone ended up completely covered in snow. I was really lucky, I remembered to zip my pockets otherwise my camera would have been dead.

After this we all went into one of their little beverage semi heated areas. But the little bit of heat was better than the harsh outdoor temp. We stayed in there for a while and then I was able to get everyone together for a great group picture! We continued to walk around some more and then we went over to the other side of the park and found some more slides. These were smaller scale and a snow bank was not needed to stop. But they were a lot of fun. Some of the guys probably went down the slides about 20 times.

It was such a great day. Even though it was freezing it was an incredible experience. The structures still amaze me. Pictures don’t do it justice; it is one of those things you just need to see for yourself!

We left the park when they were closing. All of the neon lights started to turn off. A taxi driver wanted to take a picture of our group on his phone…so we took that opportunity to give him my camera as well and get another group shot…unfortunately, if you look at my pictures, the group shot that he took didn’t work so well! Haha so we took another group shot with him in it. Then he drove us back to the hotel.

At the hotel we found out that the ice bar (and most other bars in the city) was closed for the youth games…these youth games ruined things for us. I was very disappointed but I am really lucky to be able to have seen everything that I saw.

So at this point most of us had not eaten a meal yet, and everything in Harbin closes at 9:30. It is so weird! So we knew we were going to have to eat fast food. Our first hope was KFC, but naturally we were about 5 minutes late, they had just closed. So our next bet was McD’s. We found one and it was fantastic!! After McD’s we walked down the road to a bar that was open called USA bar. We just had a couple of beers to warm up and then we walked home around 1:30AM.

The streets were dead. It was a ghost town. The guys started a snowball fight, which was so much fun we were just running in and out of the streets and we didn’t have to worry about being killed because no one was out. It was the best, and the coldest, snowball fight that lasted about a mile.

A weekend trip to Harbin, China

Friday Feb. 20^th…

After only a few hours of sleep it was time to wake up and get in a taxi to go to the Hongqiao airport. 10 of us were traveling to Harbin for the weekend to see their annual Ice & Snow Festival. We got to the airport early, and sat around for a while. The flight we took was on time…Thank God! The first flight was about 1.5 hours. I tried sleeping most of the way but I was unsuccessful. We stopped in Yan Tai for a 30-minute stop. We got off the plane and sat in the airport for about 30 minutes and then boarded the exact same plane and then took off. It seemed very unnecessary to me, but o well. At the airport we saw a bunch of Chinese fighter jets. It turns out Yan Tai is really close to North Korea.

We finally landed in Harbin, and it was freezing! We quickly got 3 taxis and headed towards the hotel. The most interesting thing that we saw along the way were the street sweepers. Instead of plowing the roads they have people standing on the side of the road sweeping the snow away. They seemed to be affective but I feel like there would be a quicker way to do that, but if you have the manpower, I guess why not hire people to sweep the road…oh China.

We arrived at the hotel and then had to check in. We ended up getting nicer rooms than what we paid for…Thanks hostelworld.com!!! We stayed at the JinJiang Inn-Sophia Plaza hotel. It was in a great location and really nice on the inside. Also, the people at the front desk were really helpful. They helped us get to all of the big attractions that we wanted to see. To think we stayed there for 2 nights and we each only paid about $25 total.

After we got settled in our rooms we bundled up and ventured out into the cold.  We went to the main plaza area and saw St. Sophia Cathedral…it was only 2 blocks away. We just wandered around for a while and then we ate. Ironically we ate at a Chinese restaurant called California Beef Noodle USA. Very strange name. but very good food. Harbin is a very interesting city architecturally. It used to be apart of Russia so there are a lot of Russian style buildings in the city. We wandered down to Central Street (Zhongyang Dajie), it is one of the largest pedestrian streets in Asia. It has a total length of 1,450 meters (1,586 yards). Along this whole street their were small ice sculptures. Some still had a lot of detail while others were losing their shape. This road took us straight to the frozen Songhua River. The river was so frozen that cars were driving on the ice. There was an area cleared of snow for ice-skating and ‘bobsled’ type chairs. They are hard to describe so it would be best just to look at my pictures to see for yourself. We rented one of these things and thoroughly enjoyed our time on the river. The sun was setting and it was gorgeous. Cold, but gorgeous. It was so cold the batteries in our cameras were losing their life…all of our batteries were dying very quickly!

As night fell it got even colder, at least during the day we had the sun to provide some heat but not anymore. I must say what a lifesaver my knock off Uggs were! Those things saved my toes!!! They were so warm. I only wore one pair of ankle socks and my toes were fine. There were a couple of times when my feet would start to get cold and I would just start moving and everything was fine again. They were awesome! By far the best purchase I have made while being in China.

We spent the night at the Disney Ice Park. It was awesome. There were castles, buildings, and icons from major Disney films made out of ice. They also had snow sculptures and some smaller scale ice sculptures. There were ice slides as a way to exit most of the big ice sculptures. Everything was ice. It was incredible.

After Disney and spending about 8 hours outside in around -15F degree weather we went to go get dinner. We went to a restaurant with the intention of just ordering dumplings. We ordered thinking that each person would eat 12 dumplings, so we would have a total of 120 dumplings. When we ordered there was something that got lost in translation. The waitress said that all of the prices on the menu were doubled because it was an old menu but she never mentioned that the quantity was also doubled. So we ended up with 240 dumplings. Plus when we thought we were just getting 12 each Josh ordered what he thought was going to be an extra 6 dumplings, and ended up being an extra 12 dumplings. We ended up with 252 dumplings that 10 people needed to eat. There were so many dumplings on our table!!! All of the dumplings were finished…That’s what happens when you travel with 8 guys. The best part about this meal…252 dumplings, 9 beers, and a soda cost less than $3 per person. You just can’t beat those prices!! I love China!

After dinner we just went back to the hotel and went to sleep. It was a long day on a very small amount of sleep.

My life kind of got boring now that I am an engineering student again

Wednesday Feb. 18^th...

Now that we are taking engineering classes I am starting to get into a routine. In some ways it is nice to have a little structure back in my life because most of you from Purdue know how I like to organize my time down to every minute during the school week J But it other senses it is sad to be done with vacation.

Being in china has really allowed me to step back and just relax and enjoy. I am not stressing out about a million different things I need to do. I am sure there are things that I need to get done in a more timely manner…but I am stress free for the first time since I have started classes at Purdue!

So the big highlight today, other than class and homework was the late night run. Kyle came down to our room at 11:00PM and asked if we wanted to go on a run. We said yes. The lady that sits at the front of our building was very worried because she locks the doors at midnight and if we are not inside the only way for us to get back in is ring the doorbell and wake her up.

So we get outside and it is raining. It was surprisingly refreshing. The run was good other than the massive cramp I got in my calf but we made it back before the lady locked the door.

Thursday Feb. 19^th…

I woke up early this morning to go to my 8AM class. I get to class and the professor is not yet there, so we started asking the Chinese students if they have the 10 minute rule. Back at Purdue, it is an unwritten rule, made by the students, that states, if a professor has not shown up for 10 minutes after the class was supposed to start….everyone leaves. It doesn’t happen very often but it is a nice surprise when it does J Anyway, the Chinese students don’t have anything like this. They actually called the professor or TA (I am not exactly sure which one) and asked where they were. I was shocked!!! At Purdue no one in his or her right mind would call the professor to find out where he/she is, we would just leave. It turned out that the professor was stuck in a traffic jam and would not make it to class so class was canceled!!

I went back to my room and worked on a little bit of homework, and then I took a nap. I woke up from my nap to go to an office hour and then class. After coming back to my room and warming up, since the classrooms are cold, I worked on some more homework.  Eventually we had a little meeting in the guys room about our Harbin trip, we were finalizing how to get to the airport and things of that nature. The guys gave me money for the hotel. Everyone owed me 172 RMB. Everyone was really good about giving my exact change…especially Adam. Adam decided to give me 160RMB in the bills. And then he gave my 12 RMB in jiao’s. So basically I got $12 in dimes!!! It was so funny. As I was talking to some of the guys I heard Adam going around to the different rooms asking everyone for all of their change. I didn’t have a bag or anything to my pockets were stuffed with coins and now I cannot get rid of them. Even the woman that we have to get laundry coins from she would not accept them as payment. So basically it comes down to the next person in the group that I owe money too will be getting a lot of change J

After all of that happened I still had to pack for the trip. Not like it was a difficult task because I just needed warm clothes, but it still needed to be done. It was quick and easy. Not having all of my clothes in China made it a lot easier to pack, the selection is already narrowed for me. As I was packing we watched a movie. I never finished the movie, I fell asleep as soon as I was done packing. 

One class & an easy afternoon

Tuesday Feb. 17^th…

Today I only had one class. This is a very nice change of pace from the class schedule that I have while I am at Purdue. The class I had this morning was my Heat and Mass Transfer class. The students that helped us get settled this last weekend are in that class with us. The class is pretty evenly split with Chinese students and foreign students.  The professor is from Portugal, but his English is very good. I was told from an older grad student on campus that he has been at SJTU since 2002. Also in our class is a German exchange student. He lives in our building so it is nice to get to know some other people from around the world other than the Purdue group.

After class we went straight to lunch. It was definitely rush hour in the dinning hall. It was crazy busy. People everywhere. Most people were waiting in line for food. Other people were trying to find a place to sit, which is virtually impossible during this time frame. And then 15 minutes later the whole place is virtually dead. It all happened so fast; we hardly even knew what happened.

After lunch one of the Chinese students came back to the dorm with us to help us register for classes. At SJTU you must register for classes online (that makes sense, we do that back at Purdue) but it is all in Mandarin. So for exchange students like ignorant Americans who are not required to learn another language, this system becomes very challenging. Thankfully the Chinese students have been nothing but great help so we showed them the classes we were taking and we gave them our student ID’s and they registered for us. Hopefully everything went through J Also the Chinese students brought us maps of campus. I cannot get over how helpful they have been. They just go above and beyond to make sure we are settled.

Since we were done with class for the day Caitlin, Kevin and I headed to Auchen. It is about 5 blocks outside of campus and it is the Chinese version of Wal-mart, although I have heard that it is a French store…so who knows. You can get everything you need there. They also have a food area so it is one stop shopping.  Caitlin and I were looking for some things to finish making our room feel like home. We ended up getting some small rugs, a few stands to put things on in the bathroom, some cups, some notebooks to go to classes with…a bunch of little things like that. Somehow, just like in Wal-mart, the time just flew by. We were in Auchen for quite some time before we had to leave and make the trek back to campus with all of our purchases.

When we got back it was dinnertime. We went over to the dinning hall. The night after that was pretty low key. Just hung out and talked online with some friends back at Purdue.

First Day of classes

Monday Feb 16^th…

We woke up early for our first day of school. You know how new semesters start, you have to get up early to shower and be there early and look like you are awake, alert and ready to learn. Yes that was Caitlin and me Monday morning. We did this knowing it would not last because no matter the ambitions for the new semester I always fall into the same routine…sleep-in, shower the night before, don’t shower, walk in late, sit in the back, possibly fall asleep half way through class…you know all of the normal college student things J

Anyway our first class was at 8AM – Modeling Analysis and Controls of Dynamics, it sounds just about as fun as it actually is…not at all! So we walk into class as a group of about 15 Americans. Caitlin and I were the only responsible ones to find out where the class was so all of the guys followed us. We walk in and the only two people in the room were the professor and one other kid. We later come to find out that this Chinese student is only there because he failed the class last semester, and we make up the rest of the class. This was a major let down. We wanted to have some interaction with the Chinese students. I don’t want to ruin the anticipation that you all have hearing about the rest of my Monday but our other classes are filled with Chinese students…so for this class it may actually work to our advantage. The Chinese people are super smart in controls…this way they can’t kill the curve. 

The classroom…Is freezing!!! All of those stories you hear about the Chinese children suffering in cold classrooms, and not being able to concentrate...I am now that child. L Classes are an hour and 40 minutes. Well they are more like an hour and a half because there is a 10-minute break half way through. The whole campus moves on a bell system. During the class the halftime bell rang and the professor just stopped talking, and he was like okay we will take break now, and we were all like just keep going and he wouldn’t. We needed to have that break. It was bizarre.

The professor spoke English well, or at least well enough that we could understand. It was no different than a Chinese professor that I would have at Purdue, so the sad truth is that I am already use to it because it is just like at home.

It seems like the classes are going to be a lot more straightforward than they are at Purdue. This is what happens at Purdue…you are taught something in lecture, your homework is on something different, the quizzes you have are on something completely different from both the lecture and the homework, and then when you think there is no other variation, you take the exam. The exams have nothing to do with anything that you have learned through lecture, the homework, or the quizzes…so no matter what you do, you do not and will not know the information.  But here at SJTU, so far at least, the homework ends up being related to the lecture J

After class I had a little breakfast snack of sorts. Some sort of fried something…the Chinese sure do love their pan-fried dumpling type foods. After that Kyle and I went on a run. I showered and hung out for a while before it was time to eat lunch. There was a group of us that went to grab lunch.

After lunch we went to our second class of the day. Introduction to engineering materials. In class we were the minority, and wow did we get some stares when we walked into that room! I think they were more stares of excitement J

This professor was harder to understand but her slides were helpful and she would say things verbatim from the book, so it really is not a problem.  During our halftime break I met the students sitting behind us. Very nice people filled with excitement to have American friends. As most encounters go, we exchanged our contact information.

After class we came back to the room for a while. Abhinav was helping me set up a program on the computer, the installation actually ended up being unsuccessful L but we will figure it out. After killing sometime in the room and starting a movie, we went to a later dinner.

On the way back from dinner we met another exchange student from Texas. Her name is Yuning and she goes to University of Texas.  She was asking us where the dinning hall was so we ended up just going back to sit with her even though we were just there.  Turns out Yuning lives just a couple doors down from us. So it is nice to now know another girl on our floor J

We came back and finished the movie. Then I got on my computer and I read about the bomb threat in the Mechanical Engineering building at Purdue. Thank God there wasn’t a bomb in the end but kind of scary to think that our school had a bomb threat. Don’t worry everything is okay!!

Overall it was a great first day of class. I now know that I must layer up before class otherwise I will never make it until Spring.

Day 2 at MinHang

Sunday Feb.15^th…

This morning we woke up early to have the SJTU guys help us get our books. We had to walk over to the Mechanical Engineering building…so we were able to see a lot of the East side of campus.

This campus is so big that when they ran out of room to build on the West side of the highway they dug tunnels under the highway and built a campus on the East side that is twice as large as the West side. It is a beautiful campus, a lot of green area and trees. Also there are a number of rivers running through the campus. I cannot wait for a warm day to just sit outside and enjoy the campus…by the way the weather turned cold again. It has been rainy and cold…I guess we are just getting prepared for our trip to Harbin.

When we got back from our trip around campus, and lunch of course, we cleaned some more of the room and put in another movie. It is nice to relax. It seems like we were so busy when we were in XuJiaHui campus and now we finally get a chance to sit back and relax. Later on the guys came back to try and help us register, registration was still closed for the foreign students so it was unsuccessful.

After a failed registration attempt we talked to our sophomore friends and met with them for dinner. After dinner some of them went KTVing. Caitlin, John, Kevin and I decided to go back to the rooms and play some euchre.  Kevin and I were partners and we did horrible. We got killed 3 times in a row. We were euchred so many times it was ridiculous. I do not blame it on our lack of skill I blame the loss on the incredible cards that Caitlin and John were delt. It was not even fair! I have never seen so many good hands in a row.

After being torn to shreds in euchre, we all just hung out and talked for a while. It was an early night but we had a lot of really good laughs while playing cards.

Arriving at the SJTU MinHang campus

Saturday Feb.14^th…

Happy Valentines Day!

On Saturday morning we had to be up and ready to leave the Faculty Club by 9:30AM. So after our KTVing adventure it did not leave us much time to sleep. After getting our blankets back we were able to get a few hours of sleep, thankfully we had packed the night before!

The bus was packed!!! It wasn’t a huge bus, and the storage underneath was limited so a lot of the bags had to come on the bus. I was sitting in the back…I made the assumption that the bags would stay in the front, less work right…it would make sense to most people, but not to a group of 18 engineers. So all the bags ended up being carried to the back of the bus, when the last row of seats was stacked to the ceiling, the bags were put in the aisle. Adam and I each had a seat in the last row. We ended up being packed in. The bags were all around us. A few times during the trip some bags tried falling on us, thankfully we were aware this was a possibility and we were able to stop them!

After an hour ride we arrived at the international dormitory on Shanghai Jiao Tong Universities MinHang campus.  There were two SJTU students that met us at the dorm. Turns out these two kids will be studying at Purdue next fall!

These guys have been a huge help! They got us all checked in, they helped some of the guys carry their bags to the 5^th floor. The guys are on the 5^th floor and Caitlin and I are on the 1^st floor.

The room is really nice. Everything is new…well accept in the bathroom. We ended up wiping everything down with wet one wipes. And we also cleaned the floor. They provided bedding for us so that was easy, although we did have to go buy towels and toilet paper. The best thing about the room was that ours was the nicest out of all of the rooms!!! Since we had the worst room at the Faculty Club we just kept telling the guys to wait and see that we were going to have the best one at MinHang…and we were right!!! Finally no bugs in the room!!!

After the two SJTU students got everyone checked in they ate lunch with us at the canteen (That what they call the dinning hall here). Then we went on a tour around campus. It was interesting talking to them because we would ask them questions about SJTU and they would ask us about Purdue, so the conversation wasn’t one sided which was enjoyable. They helped us buy cables to connect to the internet and then they came back to our room and helped Caitlin and I set our internet up.

One of the great things about SJTU…they have 3 treasures on campus. Cats, Pigeons, and Woman!!! Since the women on this campus are few and far between, especially in engineering, the guys are super welcoming and they treasure us! Unlike the boys in our group they are very willing to help us!

After the guys left, Caitlin and I went shopping to get hangers and towels, things of that nature. There is a place on campus with a bunch of little stores…they are all exactly what you picture when you think of China…stores packed full with anything and everything you could ever want. We were able to find some hangers and some plastic shelves for our closets. We found a cheap straightner, FINALLY!!! We also bought some towels, that are very thin…haha…the towels are entertaining. Mine are bright pink and they have mushrooms embroidered all over them…mushrooms on a towel? It was our only option, so we had to take them. Only in China!!!

After so many fantastic purchases we came back to the dorm and organized our lives in our new room. It was nice to finally unpack after living out of a suitcase for the last 6 weeks.

We ended up meeting our friends, from the class at XuJiaHui, for dinner…I will probably end up referring to them as the sophomores because they are a year younger and now that we are meeting so many people I am going to have to keep them straight for all of you.

The meals here are fantastic!!!! There are 5 canteens on campus, most of which have 2 floors. There is so much to choose from I cannot even begin to describe what is available. So long as you are not a picky eater and you are okay with pointing and just trying something random…you will enjoy the food.

After dinner we just came back to our room and watched Seven Pounds. It is wonderful being able to see movies that I missed in the theater back in America. I can just go down to the corner and buy almost any movie I want. I actually haven’t bought movies, only the Friends complete seasons, but the guys have been going crazy so I have been borrowing their movies J

Overall the first day at the MinHang campus was wonderful. I know I am really going to enjoy my next 12 weeks here. It feels a lot like I think a campus should feel like. It’s no Purdue, but it will become a home J

Friday the 13th

Friday Feb. 13^th…

For lunch Caitlin and I went to get dumplings. We decided we needed to go to our favorite dumpling place one last time. And it was, as always, delicious!

In the afternoon we had our last class. We all had to give our final presentations, so it ended up being a long class.

That night we had a big dinner with Dianne, Weiqi, and our Chinese classmates. It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of toasts. One of the Chinese guys sang a popular song, all the Chinese people ended up joining in. Then they had me start Hail Purdue. It was really neat to see the interaction with the Chinese students and Weiqi. Everyone had such a great time. And the food was fantastic. Our hotel had a restaurant in it, so we just ate there, and the Chinese students picked out the meal…It may have been one of the bests that we have had!

After our meal Caitlin and I watched Greys Anatomy and Private Practice….we have to wait until Friday for the shows to be posted! They were fantastic. I am so glad I don’t have to wait until this summer to catch up on them J

After we were done with our shows we went out with our Chinese classmates…they took us KTVing. The way KTV works is you get a room based on the size of your group. Well when we started our group was less than 10 but eventually we had about 25 people in this room made for about 10 people. It was so much fun! The Chinese kids sang some of the Chinese songs for us and then we all sang some of the American songs. I was actually surprised with how many songs they had to choose from. Some people ended up leaving around 1AM to go to a club but there were about 6 of us that stayed. Then some of the Italians came and met us. Time just flew by and before you know it we were still singing at 5AM. We ended up leaving shortly there after and went to McD’s for breakfast.

Now lets talk about McD’s…I don’t know what happened but somehow they served me three Pepsi’s but charged me for the meal that I ordered. Maybe it was part of my broken Chinese and my pointing that confused them. I dunno. I am still confused how this happened. I eventually got it figured out, Thank God!!

When Caitlin and I got back to the hotel we walked into our room to find that our comforters and pillows had been stolen…Thankfully Kyle texted me and then called me right after he committed this act of breaking and entering so I knew exactly where our bedding was. Turns out they went down to the front desk and the housekeeping just let them in…this happened a lot while we were in that hotel. I guess they see white person and then they see our block of rooms and think it’s legit.  Upon entering Kyle’s room we only found one set that we needed but we knew just where to find the other one. So after getting into Abhinav’s room we finally had our bedding back JFriday 13^th…

For lunch Caitlin and I went to get dumplings. We decided we needed to go to our favorite dumpling place one last time. And it was, as always, delicious!

In the afternoon we had our last class. We all had to give our final presentations, so it ended up being a long class.

That night we had a big dinner with Dianne, Weiqi, and our Chinese classmates. It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of toasts. One of the Chinese guys sang a popular song, all the Chinese people ended up joining in. Then they had me start Hail Purdue. It was really neat to see the interaction with the Chinese students and Weiqi. Everyone had such a great time. And the food was fantastic. Our hotel had a restaurant in it, so we just ate there, and the Chinese students picked out the meal…It may have been one of the bests that we have had!

After our meal Caitlin and I watched Greys Anatomy and Private Practice….we have to wait until Friday for the shows to be posted! They were fantastic. I am so glad I don’t have to wait until this summer to catch up on them J

After we were done with our shows we went out with our Chinese classmates…they took us KTVing. The way KTV works is you get a room based on the size of your group. Well when we started our group was less than 10 but eventually we had about 25 people in this room made for about 10 people. It was so much fun! The Chinese kids sang some of the Chinese songs for us and then we all sang some of the American songs. I was actually surprised with how many songs they had to choose from. Some people ended up leaving around 1AM to go to a club but there were about 6 of us that stayed. Then some of the Italians came and met us. Time just flew by and before you know it we were still singing at 5AM. We ended up leaving shortly there after and went to McD’s for breakfast.

Now lets talk about McD’s…I don’t know what happened but somehow they served me three Pepsi’s but charged me for the meal that I ordered. Maybe it was part of my broken Chinese and my pointing that confused them. I dunno. I am still confused how this happened. I eventually got it figured out, Thank God!!!

When Caitlin and I got back to the hotel we walked into our room to find that our comforters and pillows had been stolen…Thankfully Kyle texted me and then called me right after he committed this act of breaking and entering so I knew exactly where our bedding was. Turns out they went down to the front desk and the housekeeping just let them in…this happened a lot while we were in that hotel. I guess they see white person and then they see our block of rooms and think it’s legit.  Upon entering Kyle’s room we only found one set that we needed but we knew just where to find the other one. So after getting into Abhinav’s room we finally had our bedding back J These boys sure do keep us on our toes…but it makes it fun!

Other than our bedding being stolen, Friday the 13th was a great day!

My Last Week as a Liberal Arts Student

On Monday we went out to a place (Blue Frog) that had true American Burgers…It ended up being one of the best burgers I have ever had! Blue Frog was about a 15 minute walk to campus The special was buy one get one free so Caitlin and I were able to split the cost. I had a blue cheese burger, which was cooked a perfect medium rare. It was amazing! With french fries and ketchup! Caitlin and most of the guys got a Montana Burger. This burger was HUGE!!! (I have posted a picture of Adam and his Burger). It looked fantastic and everyone said it was. It was a burger patty, cheese, bacon, an onion ring plus the lettuce, tomato, and onion. And on top of all of that was BBQ sauce.

Overall this week was really busy with classes all day.  So at night we just visited some of our favorite hotspots that we have found over the last 6 weeks. It was all slightly bittersweet…to be ending our career as ‘Liberal Arts’ students.  With the past 6 weeks being easy academically we have been calling our selves Liberal Arts students, because we finally realize how they have so much free time to go out every night and actually enjoy their lives and not spend all of their time in the library, doing homework and projects, all week.

Thursday Feb 12^th…

The weather has been in the 70’s (Fahrenheit…even though I am now fully immersed in the Celsius system, I decided to convert back to accommodate all of America) so after class we decided to go to the Jonghua Temple. It was a short subway ride away. A few of our Chinese classmates came with us. I love that they want to hang out and get to know us.  Outside the temple was the Jonghua Pagoda. A pretty standard Pagoda like we saw a lot of in Suzhou and Hangzhou.  Right next to the Pagoda there was a tree with red ribbons draped around most of the branches. People were able to buy these ribbons and throw them into the tree. And since China is so over populated they paid some lady to pick up all the ones that have fallen off the tree. She then proceeds to stand there and throw them back into the tree…it is very bizaare.

The courtyards of the temple appeared the same as the other temples we have seen, however, the alters were actually quite massive. The statues would fill up a complete room. It was very quite. There was a gross little pond off to the side with a lot of dead fish and dead turtles…it actually isn’t even worth mentioning. I enjoyed seeing this temple. If it weren’t for the elaborate alters I wouldn’t recommend going, but they really are massive and worth seeing.

Right next to the temple there was the Longhua Martyrs Mausoleum.  This, for us Americans, ended up being a beautiful park with some big statues honoring the Longhua Martyrs. It was very peaceful and beautiful on such a gorgeous day. We walked around for a while, then we ended up just sitting on benches. It was great to get out for the afternoon and enjoy the weather.

Later on we went to Zapatas and enjoyed a couple of free drinks and then went to Windows for our last time, well I am sure we will be back but for our last time while living in XuJiaHui.  As always we had a great time J

Squatty Potties

As we head into our final week of class at the XuJiaHui campus I am predicting I won't have too many new stories to report.  We have classes all day everyday :( After classes are over we will be hanging out for a while and then I am sure we will try to frequent some of our favorite hot spots one last time before we are an hour away and actually have engineering homework.

As for a great purchase that I made yesterday (Monday)...I bought the complete set of Friends. All 10 seasons for 40 kuai ($6). The quality is not 100% but for $6 rather than close to $200 back home I will manage just fine.

There are more people back on campus since their break is coming to an end and since then the dinning hall food has improved dramatically. The food has always been good, there is just a lot more to choose from now. They kept it pretty limited over the new year break.

Now lets cover something that many people have been asking me about...Squatty Potties!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term squatty potty, it is the eastern hole in the ground to go to the bathroom. Typically there is some sort of porcelain oval shape, flush to the ground, that leads to the piping but there is no place to sit, hence the 'squatty'.  Sometimes you don't even get the porcelain and in those instances you literally have a trough that runs all the way through the line of stalls. Yes, the squatty potties over here are gross! I don't want to go into to much detail and gross everyone out but really just think about it, and you can figure out why the floor gets messy and these stalls are nasty! Typically toilet paper is not provided in addition, soap and paper towels are not provided next to the sink - Thank God for travel tissues and wet wipes!  I can get over the gross factor, afterall I am in China, and I cannot expect everything to be clean. But, the smell!! wow!! I cannot seem to get past that. It is one of the worst smells ever, and we have smelt a lot of bad things!!! I honestly hold my breath when I go into most restrooms here in China. Yuck! I don't understand how something can smell so bad! It's awful!

Along the lines of the bathroom...

In America most woman go to the bathroom together, usually in pairs or in groups. In China they take that to a new level. A while back I was waiting in line for a stall to open up, and the two girls in front of my went into one stall!! one squatty potty stall - I couldn't believe it. I guess that is really knowing your best friends! 

Well I think I have enlightened everyone enough for a while. so if anything interesting happens before the big move I will keep you guys posted. If not I will post when I get settled at the Minhang campus.

I hope everyone back home is doing well. And can someone please tell me what is going on with Boilermaker Basketball (Men's)!!! I am not enjoying checking ESPN.com anymore, because recently I keep seeing Loss after Loss :(

A little shopping and trip planning

Saturday Feb 7^th…

Today I went and ordered my custom tailored coat at the Science and technology shopping center. It is a very classic ¾ length camel color coat. I hope it turns out the way I expect it to. I ordered it from the same tailor that made the guys coats. I am really excited to go pick it up in a couple of weeks.

After a long time with the tailor deciding exactly what I wanted I continued to walk around and shop. I decided I needed to buy some boots since I will be heading up North in a couple of weeks.  I am ashamed to report I bought a pair of knock off Ugg boots. I only bought them because they are warm and I need something to keep my feet warm and dry while I go trudge around in the snow when I am visiting Harbin in 2 weeks.

I will be heading up north to Harbin, China for the annual Ice & Snow Festival. After shopping and eating dinner in the dinning hall Caitlin and I sat down and bought tickets for our flight. They ended up being less than $150. I was really surprised and very excited to be able to go on such an affordable trip. If you don’t know what this festival is, Google the Harbin Ice & Snow Festival. The pictures are incredible and I am really excited that I am going to see it, even if it is extremely cold (Harbin is so far north, it close to Russia…so it will be cold!)

I had planned on it being a really relaxed night and it was, until about 12:30AM when a group of us decided to go out because one of our Chinese classmates came in from Minhang to hang out with us. Now, we cannot let this kid down. So we went out and showed him a good time, but I definitely did not get as much sleep as I was planning on.

We introduced hot fudge sundaes

Friday Feb 6^th…

Another day of classes. After class 4 of us went out for a really early dinner. A group of the Chinese students ended up meeting us out.  They were teaching us some Chinese phrases. We had a lot of really good laughs with some of the translation issues.

On the way to the metro we found out that a lot of them had never had an ice cream sundae before, therefore some people stopped at McD’s to get hot fudge sundaes. They all seemed to enjoy their ice cream.  As a side note the hot fudge sundae at McD’s is on their 6 Kuai menu. I laugh because it is funny how universal the $1 menu is. In China this ends up being a little less than a dollar but essentially the same idea.

Caitlin and I got back to the room around 10:00. We called it an early night because we had some streaming to do. We had to find Thursday’s episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. Thankfully we have a website which is called youku.com. This is basically the Chinese youTube but they have full episodes rather than watching shows in 6 different parts like youTube does. Also, youku is very timely about putting up the new episodes, which is good because these dramas are addicting!!!

Basketball with our Chinese classmates

Thursday Feb 5^th…

We had class with our Chinese classmates today. My group completed a lot of what needed to be done quickly so it was a nice time to talk. We talked a lot about their school and how it is different, for example they take 10 classes every semester. After class the guys played basketball with the Chinese students. 

The funny thing about the basketball courts on campus…They are really bad quality. The backboards are bad. There are no nets, just the hoop. You have to bring your own ball but you still have to check in with your student ID before entering. So they actually pay someone to sit there all day and just check student IDs…they really do have that many people in the country that worthless jobs like that are very common.

The guys played with 3 teams and played a round robin. The Chinese students were under the impression that all American’s play basketball. Many Chinese students follow the NBA. Some of the guys were really good. I enjoyed watching and socializing from the side.

From the basketball court we all went to the dinning hall for dinner.  After we let our food settle, Caitlin, Kyle and I started a workout video but were quickly interrupted with the option to go get free drinks for an hour at one of the bars. So naturally we stopped working out and went out and enjoyed. This whole being able to go out during the week is weird. As engineers at Purdue we don’t get to experience this. We are just telling ourselves for one more week (until we move to MinHang) we are liberal arts students and we are living it up. Because before we know it, reality will kick in and we will be back to engineering courses L

Getting to know our Chinese classmates

Tuesday Feb 3^rd…

Since the dumpling place finally decided to re-open after being closed entirely too long for new years, Caitlin and I only found it appropriate to go there for lunch. Apparently many other people had the same idea. It took forever to get our dumplings. Caitlin and I ended up having to take them to go, and we ate them during class.

After class we went to the track to run.  The track was much more active than I thought it was going to be. There were a lot of people running and doing exercises. The majority of these people were male, however the females that were working out only seemed to be walking, so Caitlin and I received some interesting looks when we were running and working out with the guys.

I went out with some of the guys to get rice from the street vendors. Then we came back and played some Eucher. It was a close game but Kyle and I managed to win.

Wednesday Feb 4^th…

This morning I slept in and then went to Weiqi’s class. Some of our Chinese classmates sat in on this class so Weiqi often stopped the class to make sure that they agreed with what she was telling us about the Chinese culture.

After class we went to the dining hall for dinner. When we got back from dinner a bunch of the Chinese kids were still around (they live at the other campus) so we all just hung out and got to know each other some more. The Chinese students decided they wanted to go out to the bars, so we took them to Bulldogs with us. It actually seemed appropriate since one of them was celebrating his 21^st birthday, and since he was hanging out with Americans, it made sense to go out and celebrate the way Americans do.

Upon arrival at bulldogs we all started playing games. Eventually we all were dancing. Our classmates had a great time. For most of them, it was their first time in a bar.  Hopefully we don’t end up being too bad of influences on them.

Superbowl Monday

Monday Feb 2^nd…

So as everyone was back home enjoying Superbowl Sunday we woke up early to enjoy Monday morning Superbowl. Caitlin and I met the guys on Tongren Lu at 7:30AM (we know, we were late for kickoff) . I don’t remember the name of the place but we payed 100 Kuai for a breakfast buffet. It was a great American breakfast...including eggs benedict J We stayed there to watch the game for a while but it got really hot so we decided to go back to the Faculty club and try to stream it off the internet. The NFL has everything very well blocked and we were unsuccessful. The guys ended up watching it on the TV with Chinese announcers. Caitlin and I turned it on after our TV got fixed.

We haven’t used our TV since we tried it out the first week we got here. We tried turning it on for the game and it didn’t work. So we talked to the maid and she called maintenance. They couldn’t figure it out, so they did the next most logical thing…take our broken TV out and put it in the room next door, and we got the working TV from next door. And that is how China fixes problems…just moves the broken things to a different location and exchanges them with the working things from that location.

We missed what we heard was a great end to the game; we had to go to class. This class was great though; we got to meet our Chinese classmates. There are 9 SJTU students that came back from their break early to be apart of our class. Ultimately they are trying to come to Purdue for the next two years and this class helps their application. We took a lot of time in class to do ice breakers and get to know each other. I am very impressed with how well they speak English. They are funny too. It is really nice to finally have some other people in our class other than our classmates from Purdue.

After class we all went to the dinning hall together. I sat with the three Chinese students that I talked with the most during class. They are just as interested to get to know us as we are to get to know them. After lunch we had some time before our afternoon class so I played Frisbee for about 15 minutes with Chinese students.

After our second class of the day Caitlin, Kyle and I did a workout video and then I had to write my paper that was due at midnight. The incentive to get my paper done quickly was there were free Margaritas for Ladies at a place not to far from campus. Since I was motivated I sat down and was able to get the paper done quickly. I showered and got ready to go out. Our guys were going to be there too since Zapatas lured the guys into the bar by serving free beer for an hour. Also some of the Italian guys that we have met joined us. The night ended up being so much fun. No one was drunk everyone just had a great time dancing and playing cards together. It's weird to think how close we have all become in last month. This group from Purdue has really become a great group of friends.

ni hao

- kyle

Nan Xiang Dumplings

Sunday Feb 1^st…

Another gorgeous day in Shanghai, China.

I started the day by going to the market with Adam, Kyle, and Caitlin. Our favorite place to eat at the market was closed because of the New Year Celebration. I swear everything closes. It is unreal how the whole city just shuts down. The streets have been quite for a week. Anyway, we ended up going to a small little place that was open, the only problem was that everything was written in Chinese. So we looked at the menu and pointed to something, we had no idea what we were going to get. Kyle got a noodle soup thing, which ended up being good. Caitlin got a lot of spicy toufu with some rice, she said the flavoring was alright and the toufu was just overwhelming. I ended up getting some sort of sponge like toufu on rice with peanuts in it. The flavoring was actually really good, however I did not like the spongy toufu. I ended up eating the rice with the sauce on it and the peanuts. Adam was not adventurous enough and he just ordered a dumpling soup from the place next door.  Even though we didn’t have great meals it was a fun experience. The anticipation to see what we were going to get was fun for me.

After lunch Caitlin and I headed out to get our toe nails done.  We were thinking we were going to get a pedicure but it was a completely different experience. All she did was cut our nails, than file them, and then paint our toe nails. Even though it was not what we had anticipated it is still nice to have my toe nails painted.

After the walk back it was about time to go to the Yu Bazaar area. We planned on going to see all of the New Year decorations. The decorations for the Chinese New Year are overwhelming!!! Everywhere you look something is decorated with lanterns, something for the year of the ox, or something red.  I still cannot get over how big of a deal the Lunar New Year celebration is to the Chinese. After walking around and looking at the decorations we stopped to get some dumplings. First, Caitlin and I got a soup dumpling and then we went to a suggestion that Mom wrote down for me.

During the time of the Olympics there were all of the TV specials on places to visit around China. Mom took diligent notes for me since she knew I would be here. I am now proud to say I checked one of the restaurants off of the list.  We went to Nan Xiang. It is a dumpling place in the Yu Bazaar area. You can see them making the dumplings right in front of you if you order to go (the line was extremely long) or you can go upstairs to sit down. This dinning experience was unlike anything that I have experienced thus far in China. As soon as we got to the top of the stairs we stopped at the counter ordered what we wanted and received different colored tickets according to what we ordered. Then, we were lucky enough to find a table, so we sat down. Many people in China split tables. For example if it is a table for 4 and only 2 people are sitting there, 2 other random people will sit down next to them in order to get a seat. We did not have to do that, like I said we got lucky. So we sat and waited then a cart with a number of dumpling stacks just rolled into the room and they went from the front to the back and distributed the dumplings according to how many tickets were on your table. When they ran out on the cart they went back into the kitchen and got more. Eventually people started finishing up and more people filled in their seats only to wait for the cart to make another mass delivery.  Some advice if you happen to visit Nan Xiang…sit closer to the door, you get served first! The dumplings were fantastic, although they were a little more expensive than our local dumpling place.

I love Xiaolongbao (steamed dumplings). I think I could eat them everyday and be very happy!!!

After this late dinner we just wandered back to Nanjing Lu and ended up on the subway back to XuJiaHui.

It is the end of week 4

Saturday Jan 31^st…

After sleeping in, I walked around the area surrounding campus. It was a beautiful day. I poked in and out of little street shops. I seemed to be going into a lot of DVD shops, I was kind of comparing prices on season packages (I found some great deals on the complete Friends set J ). Eventually, I ended up at the market west of campus and bought some amazing strawberries and cherries. I also bought some dumpling soup but the man put the nasty seaweed stuff in there. Yuck! At first he pointed to the seasonings so I said yes and when I walked away I smelled that aweful smell of the seaweed in my soup. When I got back to the room I made sure to pick all of the seaweed out of my soup, and then I proceeded to enjoy the soup.

I didn’t really do anything exciting in the afternoon. Eventually I walked around the XuJiaHui area and a group of us went to dinner. We found an Applebees!! Haha it was good. Although their Chicken Fajita Rollup is not the same---quite the let down! After dinner a group of us headed to Archies. We found the place on one of our Shanghai websites. It was a cute small place. It was really chill which was nice for a low key night. The owner had his dogs loose inside the place. He had an adorable Golden Retriever.  After a couple of drinks, and a free drink from the owner we headed home.

We hung out in our room for a short while and then we called it a night.

This was the end of week four in Shanghai. I cannot get over how fast the time is going. I feel like I just got here. I don't notice people starring anymore. The smells don't bother me at all. The food is delicious so long as you are not picky. The dirtiness doesn't even phase me. I guess I am just used to living in China. I am in love with the city and this country in general. What an incredible experience so far, I cannot even imagine what the remainder of the semester has to offer.