We are having a wonderful time here in Chengdu! Unfortunately, we cannot read our own blogs on the internet here because...well it is China:) So sorry if this may be repetitive.
First of all, happy birthday to my mommy who turns 41 today! She is lovely and wonderful and I miss her so much. I celebrated here with my fellow students by going to an arcade and rockin' the place at Tekken. More on that later ;)
The day began in our mouse and cockroach infested hotel like many of the other days. Most of us (not the majority) got up early to eat breakfast and go to class. The breakfast here by the way could easily be mistaken for dinner in the States...oily veggies with lots of peppers, spongy bread, rice porridge, hot soybean milk and a hard boiled egg. Kinda random to our minds. In class we finished up the Traditional Chinese Medicine basics with our teacher Flora (this is just her English name, we can't pronounce her real name). We had an eventful 3 hour class when two cars decided to engage in a car horn battle outside our thin paned windows. This is normal. Anywhere you go here car horns are sounding. It is recognized as polite to let someone know that you want to get around them.
Well, our class ended up going overtime by 30 minutes and then we went to get our photos taken for our diplomas! I am pretty excited because the Chengdu University for TCM is giving us diplomas for studying with them for a month.
You wouldn't believe how many people stare at us. Personally, I like it and I think that since the majority of our group is girls...they like it too. Phil (one of two boys on the trip) gets the most stares because he is 6'4" and just a big guy. Let's just say we really stick out here. I am 5'10" and I tower over almost all of them. I will never forget this day, the 12th, because when we were waiting in line for our photos, this troupe of girls in some sort of sweat suits were all walking by and giggling when Phil said hello! Haha it was so funny, I tried talking to them but they all just blushed because most people only speak a little bit of English. They kept saying things to me in Chinese like I would understand if they repeated themselves. Alas, I do not speak Chinese.
We were assigned a take home test that we could work in groups on and so after getting our photos taken, my group and I went to one of the only places with internet around here: ALittle Flavor. It really is "ALittle", they didn't put a space in between it:) It is the best place around for internet because they have good food and it is spacious! Very hard to find because every shop here would be considered a hole in the wall. They seriously just build the buildings with storage spaces on the road face for shops to occupy. When you walk around in the early morning, all of the metal roll-down doors are closed; it is like a smoggy, loud version of a Storage Supply.
We returned to class and learned some really hands-on knee diagnoses for injuries. We were twisting, shaking, rolling, shoving and pulling all of class. Jin Song, our teacher for this, is awesome! He is a sports medicine and acupuncture doctor. So cool, he speaks English but always misunderstands our questions. I think the class would agree when I say he is our favorite. He gives it to us straight and he lets us practice on each other. We are going to practice acupuncture next week...haha fun!
At night a whole bunch of us met in the boys' room and had chill time with dance music. The Portuguese students that are also studying at the university heard us and came to join:) Vashco, the oldest, told us a hilarious story about capturing mice in his garbage. I just wouldn't do the story justice. I don't have a sweet Portuguese accent ;) Then all 16 of us went to the arcade to play Tekken and DDR! IT was great. One of us even beat the Chinese guy that was running the place at Tekken...let me tell you, that is quite the accomplishment. We ended up keeping them open late and when we finally left we hit the 24 hour McDonald's that was on the walk back to the hotel. I don't eat Mckey D's very often but that night was totally worth it :-D
There is so much more to tell. Our group is wonderful, we are thankful we can see all of these great things and we love being here together. I think all of us will be sad to leave. Tune in next for January 13th. Our installment on the second Thursday of our adventure:)
Kelsey Holder
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