Hello from Lanzhou!
You know how people say that if you eat a big Chinese meal that you'll be hungry again in a couple of hours? IT'S SO TRUE!! I always seem to be hungry and it's kind of annoying, really. I guess I'm just waiting for my stomach to shrink down or something. I eat and I'm totally full or past full, but yet, 2 hours later, guess what??
I'm hungry again. I don't really know what to do about that. I hate to be snacking all the time; it makes me feel like a fattie, so mostly I try to just wait it out. Luckily, one of my teachers brought me a bunch of fruit, so I can have bananas or apples or little baby oranges for the next week or two....she brought me a lot!
Classes start on Monday, which is a good thing - It'll be nice to have something to do and a teacher-student setting to learn my Chinese. I got my textbooks yesterday - 4 for 155元, which is about 20$ or something like that in US$. It's SOOO nice compared to one textbook for 100$ US....oh man, I love how cheap stuff is here.
I love the students here - the ones that come up and talk to me rather than just stare, anyway. They really are very nice and very polite and genuinely excited to be speaking English with a native speaker - I met two guys yesterday who could barely speak at first because they were so nervous/excited; it was really funny.
Anyway, I really liked them, their names were Freddy and Kitty (yes, Kitty)...he didn't have an American name yet, so he told me to call him Kitty. Hmmm...interesting. I'll have to help him with that name soon, because Kitty is awful. They said it was their first time to ever talk to a native English speaker, which kind of blew my mind, really. Wow...
Freaking Kitty.
A guy named Kitty.
I've posted up a couple more videos on YouTube if you want to check them out and leave comments or video responses or whatever:
Hope everyone is well!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
First Lanzhou Post and Video
Okay, so I know that I haven't posted anything on here in a while - I've been busy trying to solidify email connections, people addresses, all kinds of junk like that....so yeah. Not an excuse, really, but anyway, I'm back now. I've been told to blog everyday, but who REALLY wants to read a blog every day?? I don't. Or at least, I haven't ever found one I'd want to read every day.
I have a journal that I've been writing in and I guess that's been my 'daily blogging'. But really, there's not much going on this week. I arrived last Saturday (the 26th) at 11pm in Lanzhou and received quite a shock from my Beijing-ed up mind. I was thinking that it wouldn't be too different from Beijing, but man was I wrong! Lanzhou seems like a great city, don't get me wrong, but it is abundantly clear that it isn't a tourist city by any stretch of the imagination. It is polluted, dirty, and smells like industry (or at least it did for the first couple of days here - I don't really notice it now).
One of the first things I could really see was this bridge here - it has constantly changing colors - red, blue, green, yellow, and all kinds of crazy stuff. At the top of the left column in the picture, there are green spotlights that make random patterns that look like tentacles. Hopefully I'll be able to get some video of those lights, because I haven't ever seen any videos of the bridge lights. There are still tons of decorations up from the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) - the highway getting into Lanzhou was packed with lights for literally about 5 miles - I've never seen that many lights. I didn't take any video or pics because it was so crazy and I was crazy tired....I'll try to go there soon and get some of that as well. It really was beautiful.
I've been settling into the daily life here on campus. I usually eat at Cafeteria Number 3 here because it's familiar and decently good - their steamed stuffed buns (包子）are amazing as well as their breakfast food - which are kind of like crepes, but cooked with green onions and some other spices and things. Good stuff.....really good.
I don't know really what to say. I know that I'm really lucky to be here and I'm making history of sorts, because I'm the first international student at this school and from ETBU, but that's really a lot to think about and I don't like to think about it. I'm still really nervous about my Chinese, but I have to get over it sometime. The students here leave me alone and don't talk to me, which is nice, but lonely at the same time. I suppose we are mutually nervous to talk to the other person. I really do garner stares - I really didn't believe people when they said that to me. But.....yeah, I do get the stares. It's disconcerting...I know people are curious, but I still have this nagging suspicion that I'm about to be robbed or something. I don't like feeling like I'm about to be robbed. (Does anyone, really?).
I'm really glad that I brought a bunch of movies over here, they've been really comforting as well as the internet itself. It's strange how something as simple as being able to read the news and get on Facebook can really make me feel like I'm at home (or at least closer). Bob Marley's "One Love" has also really helped me, for whatever reason I just can't seem to get enough of it although back home I didn't really like the song that much. Also, some of Sam Tsui's YouTube music has been nice to listen to as well as Pomplamoose's YouTube Channel - great music, everyone should check it out!
Speaking of YouTube, everyone knows I have a YouTube account and I've made a few videos - 5 total. I'm going to do more with more details of the campus...but yeah
I've been hesitant to bust out the camera, because I don't want to stick out more than I already do...but yeah, I gotta take pictures sometime. No day like today, right? I keep trying to put pictures on here from my computer, but it doesn't seem to work. It only seems to work from URLs, and Blogger doesn't seem to like Facebook URLs/Pictures.
I have a journal that I've been writing in and I guess that's been my 'daily blogging'. But really, there's not much going on this week. I arrived last Saturday (the 26th) at 11pm in Lanzhou and received quite a shock from my Beijing-ed up mind. I was thinking that it wouldn't be too different from Beijing, but man was I wrong! Lanzhou seems like a great city, don't get me wrong, but it is abundantly clear that it isn't a tourist city by any stretch of the imagination. It is polluted, dirty, and smells like industry (or at least it did for the first couple of days here - I don't really notice it now).
One of the first things I could really see was this bridge here - it has constantly changing colors - red, blue, green, yellow, and all kinds of crazy stuff. At the top of the left column in the picture, there are green spotlights that make random patterns that look like tentacles. Hopefully I'll be able to get some video of those lights, because I haven't ever seen any videos of the bridge lights. There are still tons of decorations up from the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) - the highway getting into Lanzhou was packed with lights for literally about 5 miles - I've never seen that many lights. I didn't take any video or pics because it was so crazy and I was crazy tired....I'll try to go there soon and get some of that as well. It really was beautiful.
I've been settling into the daily life here on campus. I usually eat at Cafeteria Number 3 here because it's familiar and decently good - their steamed stuffed buns (包子）are amazing as well as their breakfast food - which are kind of like crepes, but cooked with green onions and some other spices and things. Good stuff.....really good.
I don't know really what to say. I know that I'm really lucky to be here and I'm making history of sorts, because I'm the first international student at this school and from ETBU, but that's really a lot to think about and I don't like to think about it. I'm still really nervous about my Chinese, but I have to get over it sometime. The students here leave me alone and don't talk to me, which is nice, but lonely at the same time. I suppose we are mutually nervous to talk to the other person. I really do garner stares - I really didn't believe people when they said that to me. But.....yeah, I do get the stares. It's disconcerting...I know people are curious, but I still have this nagging suspicion that I'm about to be robbed or something. I don't like feeling like I'm about to be robbed. (Does anyone, really?).
I'm really glad that I brought a bunch of movies over here, they've been really comforting as well as the internet itself. It's strange how something as simple as being able to read the news and get on Facebook can really make me feel like I'm at home (or at least closer). Bob Marley's "One Love" has also really helped me, for whatever reason I just can't seem to get enough of it although back home I didn't really like the song that much. Also, some of Sam Tsui's YouTube music has been nice to listen to as well as Pomplamoose's YouTube Channel - great music, everyone should check it out!
Speaking of YouTube, everyone knows I have a YouTube account and I've made a few videos - 5 total. I'm going to do more with more details of the campus...but yeah
I've been hesitant to bust out the camera, because I don't want to stick out more than I already do...but yeah, I gotta take pictures sometime. No day like today, right? I keep trying to put pictures on here from my computer, but it doesn't seem to work. It only seems to work from URLs, and Blogger doesn't seem to like Facebook URLs/Pictures.
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