Today was super fun. We went on a day trip to Suzhou with our class (well, those who signed up and paid to go). I was super tired though because, yet again, we had to wake up at 7am to meet at the bus at 7:45. Ridiculous! There’s no such thing as sleeping in here.
Anyways, it takes about 2 hours to drive to Suzhou, so I slept on the bus. When we got there, we first went to a place called Tiger Hill, which is known for one of the king’s palaces or something like that. It was like King Wu, and he had the same character for his last name as I do. Maybe we’re related! Maybe I’m secretly a princess! Yeah, right. He died a long time ago, and got buried under a canal in his palace. I wasn’t really listening to the history lesson behind the palace, but it was something about King Wu’s army conquered that hill for 5 years, and he was Christian so Christianity took over China for like 5 years. Something like that. Anyways, it was a pretty cool palace. There was a huge pagoda on the top of the hill, which is like the Leaning Tower of Pisa of China because it’s sort of crooked. Funny. After that, we went to a Buddhist temple, which wasn’t interesting, because once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. Plus it’s just a bunch of freaking CREEPY-looking gold-plated statues that you’re supposed to burn incense to. Completely, utterly wrong. After that, we went to lunch, which was super good. It was included in the cost of the trip, so everything was ordered for us. It was just a bunch of Chinese food again, but it was good. There was one dish that was like beancurd strips in gravy with chicken. I LOVED it. I love tofu. Can’t get enough of it. After lunch we went to a garden, because Suzhou is famous for having a lot of beautiful gardens. I admit it was really beautiful, but it was a lot like Tong Li (which I visited last month with the study abroad group). There were a lot of rock formations surrounding a nice lake, which was beautifully budding with lotus plants, and there were elegant wooden Chinese-style rooms and little houses built around it. It was cute. After that, we made our last stop at the #1 silk factor in Suzhou, because Suzhou is also famous for its silk. There, we learned about how they raise silkworms and the different types of silk that can be produced and they showed us around the factory. It was actually pretty interesting, but it smelled. I don’t know why…maybe because of the silkworms. Do silkworms smell bad? Maybe the silk. Or maybe because there was no air conditioning and everyone was sweating like a beast because humidity was at like 90% today (at least that’s what it felt like). Anyways, whatever the case, I learned what stinky in Japanese is: くさい！And I bought some souvenirs to bring home. After that, we made the 2-hour drive back to Shanghai, and it was about 6pm when we got back. Me and Joanna have been running out of food though, so we decided to go to Wanda Plaza to get some snacks at WalMart. We also picked up dinner there; I ate a sandwich and she had some dumplings. It was good stuff! But we’re both super excited about the snacks we bought…there was so much good stuff at WalMart! Who knew? I wish the WalMart in America had good stuff like this. They had stuff like onion pancakes, the Chinese spongecake I like from dim sum (Ma lai go?), the onion roll that I usually get from the bao place every morning (hua juan?), and so much more. Heres the list of snacks me and Joanna bought though: green tea & red bean bread (YUM.), gai mei bao bread (lit. chicken tail bread), 3 boxes of Pocky (banana, green tea, and blueberry cheesecake flavored), 2 packs of Chips Ahoy (one with raisins and one with orange pieces), some strawberry cracker sandwich things, strawberry marshmallows, Hi Chews, choco pies, black rice crunch crackers, and other rice crackers. Yeah, it’s amazing.
Plus, yesterday, the Wus came over and gave us a bag of mangoes MMM YUM. They’re so nice…it’s crazy! Uncle & Auntie Wu are going on a trip to HK on Wednesday, but they were going to cancel it so they could stay here and take care of me and Joanna. RIDICULOUS. Luckily, they already bought the plane tickets so they have to go. I’m glad they’re going…they deserve a break. Uncle Wu works very hard. Anyways, I couldn’t believe they were going to cancel their trip just for me and Joanna, who they only met like, 3 weeks ago. Yesterday when they came over they said that they want to take care of us because we are like children to them. They talked about how they are only allowed to have one child because of the one-child law, so we are like 2 more children for them. No wonder they take care of us so much. But it’s so amazing that they would think that…I mean, me and Joanna don’t even know how to speak the same language as them. Technically, they don’t know us at all, except for what our moms have told them about us. It’s so ridiculous that they’ve decided to make us part of their family in such a short time, with such little communication. But gosh, I’m glad they did. They’re so sweet and I honestly feel like they’re part of my family too. They are so kind and giving, and China was probably the last place I would have thought I’d find that. I’m going to be so sad to leave them…I think when I say goodbye to my Chinese friends like Chris and Ariel, it’ll be different, because they’re just my friends. But since the Wus have made us feel like part of their family, it’ll be a lot more sad to say goodbye. Hopefully I can come back to visit though…I definitely want to. And I hope they can come visit us someday in America too. The sad truth is, though, they probably won’t because they just don’t have the financial means to. It makes me very depressed to think about that.
Anyways…back to studying. Today was too much fun, so now I have to compensate by studying -_- I don’t know how I’m going to survive these next two weeks. The book we have been learning from for the past 2 weeks has been level 1, but the next two weeks are supposed to be from a level 2 book because we finished the level 1 book. There’s a lot less pinyin in the new book, and a WHOLE lot more words to learn. It’s like 40-50 words per day. I’m BARELY learning the 30 words per day, and I have begun to forget some of the words I already learned. It’s so hard to remember the tone, meaning, word, and character. I just don’t have the time nor the brain capacity to learn more. Man..i don’t know what I’m going to do. STUDDYYYYYYYTIMMEEEE
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