Hi! It's about 9:30AM on 7/19 and I just finished breakfast. Here's stuff about the welcome ceremony yesterday:
Even though we were all quarantined, we still went to the Welcome Ceremony at 7pm. When we arrived to our dorms on the first day, we found 2 little stuffed bears (1 brown bear and 1 panda, the british kids got a lion and a panda)holding hands with Chinese and American flags. They told us to bring them to the ceremony but we never used them. So we got there and there are apparently 1500 people in the program and we were all sitting on little stools. They gave up glowsticks and little blow-up clapper things. There was a huge stage in front with lights and everything. First they talked about how great the program is, who we should thank, blah blah blah (there was a Chinese MC and an American MC who was from Cleveland!), then they started the performances. THEY WERE SO COOL. They did traditional Chinese dragon dance things, there were Chinese acrobat plate spinners, Chinese opera, chinese kung fu, etc. Then students performed. They had kids from Liverpool singing Beatles songs and this one British guy who was AMAZING singing some english song. They also had dancers and other cool things like that. The 8 other people in my group and I did our songs (both in Chinese, one called "2 tigers [liang zher lao hu]" and one called "where are my friends" [wha de pongyo tsai qi li]) and did little hand motions to them and it was kind of lame compared to everything else but it was fun. We sat and watched the rest of the ceremony and they ended it with some American kids doing some new line dance called "the cupid shuffle" which I thought was kind of stupid and made the Americans look trashy. But okay. So we went back to the dorm and I read a little then I went to sleep. SSSSOOO I woke up today, showered (the showers are scorching hot at wont get any colder), breakfasted (I met some kids from Indiana there and became like instant buds with a guy who has a house that's literally built into a hill), and now I'm here and Chelsea is checking Cleveland Indians scores on the computer next to me. We just sang Happy Birthday (whoa I almost typed 'harry potter' instead of 'happy birthday,' I guess that's just how my mind works) to some girl in the computer room who's birthday is today. I don't know what the internet access will be like in Shandong so I'll update as soon as I can. I might even be able to call soon! All I'm doing for the rest of the day is maybe taking a Chinese craft class, packing, and flying. Also, I want these things when I get off the plane pleeease: a comfy pillow, something with melted cheese, and a glass of milk. I haven't had milk the WHOLE time I've been here. All they have is sprite, coke, and water with lunch and dinner, and water, tea, and ICE milk with breakfast. And I hate ice milk. So I'm dying from lack of milk. PITY ME.
I LOVE YOU!! And I will see you in less than two weeks!
xoxoStephanie
p.s. I really want to see Harry Potter.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Day 4...sort of.
Hello!!!
TO MOUM: The internet here is weird and will not let me access my e-mail. You can ask Danny for help to use his facebook and send me a message to my inbox if you want. Thank you for telling me about the pictures....but I wont need them for a while because guess what? We're quarantined! And there's nothing to take pictures of!
DAY 4:
I woke up to the phone ringing at 7am and it was Stacy (one of the Chinese people) saying that our plans were CANCELED for the day. Originally we were going to go to the Summer Palace. But 8 kids (4 American, 4 British) got the flu and were sent to the hospital to be tested for swine flu. There are about 500 kids in the program and 122 of them were sent to a hotel (i'm kind of jealous) to be quarantined because they were in direct contact with the sick kids. The rest of us are semi-quarantined here at the campus. We're allowed to go on the computer though, and there are a lot of classes we can take. So I got ready and ate breakfast (I'm getting used to the food by now) and I sorta hung out with Chelsea and then I took a Chinese painting class. I painted bamboo and it's kind of bad but whatever.. They have a cool style of painting. Sooo then I came here. That's it. It's only 11:15AM and they're going to have lunch soon. After that we're rehersing our songs in chinese about tigers and friends that we have to perform tonight. Tonight I probably wont be able to write again because we're having a welcome ceremony thing where we have to sing. Then the next day we fly to the Shandong Province where we will take classes and have host families. So I'll tell you how that goes. I found out today that at the host family's house, we're going to learn to make dumplings! Yay!
Love,
Stephanie
TO MOUM: The internet here is weird and will not let me access my e-mail. You can ask Danny for help to use his facebook and send me a message to my inbox if you want. Thank you for telling me about the pictures....but I wont need them for a while because guess what? We're quarantined! And there's nothing to take pictures of!
DAY 4:
I woke up to the phone ringing at 7am and it was Stacy (one of the Chinese people) saying that our plans were CANCELED for the day. Originally we were going to go to the Summer Palace. But 8 kids (4 American, 4 British) got the flu and were sent to the hospital to be tested for swine flu. There are about 500 kids in the program and 122 of them were sent to a hotel (i'm kind of jealous) to be quarantined because they were in direct contact with the sick kids. The rest of us are semi-quarantined here at the campus. We're allowed to go on the computer though, and there are a lot of classes we can take. So I got ready and ate breakfast (I'm getting used to the food by now) and I sorta hung out with Chelsea and then I took a Chinese painting class. I painted bamboo and it's kind of bad but whatever.. They have a cool style of painting. Sooo then I came here. That's it. It's only 11:15AM and they're going to have lunch soon. After that we're rehersing our songs in chinese about tigers and friends that we have to perform tonight. Tonight I probably wont be able to write again because we're having a welcome ceremony thing where we have to sing. Then the next day we fly to the Shandong Province where we will take classes and have host families. So I'll tell you how that goes. I found out today that at the host family's house, we're going to learn to make dumplings! Yay!
Love,
Stephanie
Day 3, 7/17/09
Today we woke up early and I actually ate breakfast. We went to the lame Beijing Zoo after that. It was pouring outside and I stupidly wore tennis shoes because they said we'd be walking a lot. So I saw 3 pandas!! They're cute, even if they are bears. I took a video of one. But there were no other animals there. :( Alsooo we had to walk through giant puddles so my feet got squishy wet. We took a bus to eat lunch at a restaurant. The food was good, but not as good as yesterday. They had real toilets! but they weren't as clean as yesterday. Judy and Jasmine (roommates) left because they had to go to an important business meeting party thing for their dad but they'll be back sometime. After the zoo we went to THE GREAT WALL!!!!!! It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. Today the weather was cloudy and sorta drizzly. But that made the mountains misty so it looked really cool. So it was cooler outside today (yay) but it was slippery on the stairs. The stairs are kind of steep and it's really hard to climb up and down like 244565857585 slippery stairs without falling. But we did and I made it all the way to the top!! The great wall is really stony and surrounded by pretty green mountains. I was sweating soo much because we climbed SO MANY STAIRS. I never want to see stairs again in my life. But it was worth it. After that we went back to the dorms and practiced our chinese song performance for the welcome ceremony tomorrow and now I'm here. I'm going to eat dinner, shower!, then go to sleep. Bye!
Days 1 & 2
URGENT MESSAGE
I ONLY HAVE 15 PICTURES LEFT. CAN I DELETE THE EARLIER STUFF LIKE PROM? ISN'T IT ALREADY ON THE COMPUTER?? FATHER, PLEASE ANSWER ASAP THOUGH COMMENTS. ASK DANNY FOR HELP.
Day 1:
We got on the tiny little plane to Washington DC, which was miserable and I was sitting next to a crabby old lady. We waited around and then got on a flight from DC to Beijing, which was comfy. I watched Dragonball Z and it was awful. And I was sitting next to a nice Chinese man and I read a lot of my book and slept at odd times. We got cool food like meatloaf and baby pretzels. We also got noodles and chopsticks and I was embarrassed to use chopsticks in front of a native Chinese man so I used a spork. We did not fly west. We flew NORTH! Through PA, NY, Canada, GREENLAND! (I accidentally called it Guilford to the guy sitting next to me), over the North Pole, over RUSSIA, Mongolia, and finally to Beijing. I have cool pictures. However I fell into a short depression because while I was crossing the border to Mongolia, millions of people were watching the Harry Potter premiere which I am still dying to see. So we left DC at noon on tuesday and got there at 2pm wednesday (2am ohio time). We walked a lot and we were all really tired and we had to wait FOREVER in the airport because Mr. Paul's luggage got lost. Also, they did extreme swine flu checks all the time with thermometers they point at your forehead that look like guns. When we got to the school we set up our stuff, met people (there are american, chinese, and british (i love hearing them talk!!) and we ate dinner. It was gross. I was feeling sick anyway. Then we saw the *scary music* toilets. AKA a hole in the floor that kinda flushes. That's honestly the worst part about China. I HATE THE TOILETS. + you have to bring your own toilet paper. They're really disgusting. (so yes, mother, you are kind of right a little bit about china.)
About China: There are so many bikes with little seats on the back. Also men don't like to wear shirts. Chinese people wave to us and actually take pictures of us because we're the only non-asians here. It's strange that they're so excited about it. A lot of stuff is in English along with Chinese. The cars are really round-shaped and they all drive like daddy haha. And they like to drive in between lanes and beep their horns a lot. IT IS SO HOT OUTSIDE. And really humid. I've been sweating so much. And the Chinese people said this was NICE weather? Pish posh.
The People: are all really nice (chinese citizens and kids in the program) Janet, there's a guy who looks exactly like Peter from Degrassi and it's scary and I snuck a picture for you LOL which made me feel really creepy. The kids in my group all get along. And we all hate the food. Stephen told them his name was Steve hahaha so it's weird that everyone calls him that. My roommates in the school are Chelsea, and twins named Judy and Jasmine Ni who are fluent in Chinese.
Day 2:
Wok up, breakfast was okay, to put it kindly. Went to Tian'an Men's Square and it was cool and really big. SO MANY PEOPLE everywhere. I didn't get lost! Went to Forbidden City, which was also nice. It's mainly a big red pretty building, stairs, another big red pretty building, stairs, etc, then a garden in the back with trees that have bark that looks like hair. I have loads of pictures. There are also 2 stone statues of dragons on either side of like every doorway (a male and female) and they look like "THE STONE DRAGON!" from Mulan hahah. We learned some Chinese history and my feet hurt from standing/walking so much. All the buildings are really detailed and old and fancy. After that we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. IT WAS SO GOOD!!. It was the biggest meal I've eaten since I got here. Also, we went to the bathroom and there were ACTUAL AMERICAN TOILETS. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a toilet in my entire life. I went twice even though I didn't have to haha. UMMM it was really cool. but then we left. Then we went to The Temple of Heaven with cool trees (ginko?) and I took pictures. After that we went to a tea shop and got samples and traditional tea info. I bought some stuff there. It was a really pretty shop. After that we went shopping. SHOPPING IS SO SCARY. The salespeople hardly speak english and they run up to you like "DO YOU WANT THIS PRETTY FAN?!?!" and I'm like noo.... But you have to bargain. They'll offer you something for 25 and you have to keep your price at like 5. It's cool because everything is SO CHEAP. 6 dollars chinese money = 1 dollar american. And everything is like 10 chinese. I wish malls in america were like this. anywaaay, i bought stuff for everyone. The electronics section is hilarious because this USB drive said "2 gigabites" and the guy selling it wrote "600 gigabites" and he was trying to sell it to us. Also this crazy guy saw me looking at stamps then like...wouldn't let me leave and my group like helped push me away and we avoided that for a while. This woman wanted 180 for a print. jeremy was like "50" so she gave it to him. then he helped me bargain and i got mine for 40! yay! which is like $6.50 american money. so we left, rode the bus back, ate dinner, and now i'm here.
BYEEE
p.s. i can't call you.
I ONLY HAVE 15 PICTURES LEFT. CAN I DELETE THE EARLIER STUFF LIKE PROM? ISN'T IT ALREADY ON THE COMPUTER?? FATHER, PLEASE ANSWER ASAP THOUGH COMMENTS. ASK DANNY FOR HELP.
Day 1:
We got on the tiny little plane to Washington DC, which was miserable and I was sitting next to a crabby old lady. We waited around and then got on a flight from DC to Beijing, which was comfy. I watched Dragonball Z and it was awful. And I was sitting next to a nice Chinese man and I read a lot of my book and slept at odd times. We got cool food like meatloaf and baby pretzels. We also got noodles and chopsticks and I was embarrassed to use chopsticks in front of a native Chinese man so I used a spork. We did not fly west. We flew NORTH! Through PA, NY, Canada, GREENLAND! (I accidentally called it Guilford to the guy sitting next to me), over the North Pole, over RUSSIA, Mongolia, and finally to Beijing. I have cool pictures. However I fell into a short depression because while I was crossing the border to Mongolia, millions of people were watching the Harry Potter premiere which I am still dying to see. So we left DC at noon on tuesday and got there at 2pm wednesday (2am ohio time). We walked a lot and we were all really tired and we had to wait FOREVER in the airport because Mr. Paul's luggage got lost. Also, they did extreme swine flu checks all the time with thermometers they point at your forehead that look like guns. When we got to the school we set up our stuff, met people (there are american, chinese, and british (i love hearing them talk!!) and we ate dinner. It was gross. I was feeling sick anyway. Then we saw the *scary music* toilets. AKA a hole in the floor that kinda flushes. That's honestly the worst part about China. I HATE THE TOILETS. + you have to bring your own toilet paper. They're really disgusting. (so yes, mother, you are kind of right a little bit about china.)
About China: There are so many bikes with little seats on the back. Also men don't like to wear shirts. Chinese people wave to us and actually take pictures of us because we're the only non-asians here. It's strange that they're so excited about it. A lot of stuff is in English along with Chinese. The cars are really round-shaped and they all drive like daddy haha. And they like to drive in between lanes and beep their horns a lot. IT IS SO HOT OUTSIDE. And really humid. I've been sweating so much. And the Chinese people said this was NICE weather? Pish posh.
The People: are all really nice (chinese citizens and kids in the program) Janet, there's a guy who looks exactly like Peter from Degrassi and it's scary and I snuck a picture for you LOL which made me feel really creepy. The kids in my group all get along. And we all hate the food. Stephen told them his name was Steve hahaha so it's weird that everyone calls him that. My roommates in the school are Chelsea, and twins named Judy and Jasmine Ni who are fluent in Chinese.
Day 2:
Wok up, breakfast was okay, to put it kindly. Went to Tian'an Men's Square and it was cool and really big. SO MANY PEOPLE everywhere. I didn't get lost! Went to Forbidden City, which was also nice. It's mainly a big red pretty building, stairs, another big red pretty building, stairs, etc, then a garden in the back with trees that have bark that looks like hair. I have loads of pictures. There are also 2 stone statues of dragons on either side of like every doorway (a male and female) and they look like "THE STONE DRAGON!" from Mulan hahah. We learned some Chinese history and my feet hurt from standing/walking so much. All the buildings are really detailed and old and fancy. After that we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. IT WAS SO GOOD!!. It was the biggest meal I've eaten since I got here. Also, we went to the bathroom and there were ACTUAL AMERICAN TOILETS. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a toilet in my entire life. I went twice even though I didn't have to haha. UMMM it was really cool. but then we left. Then we went to The Temple of Heaven with cool trees (ginko?) and I took pictures. After that we went to a tea shop and got samples and traditional tea info. I bought some stuff there. It was a really pretty shop. After that we went shopping. SHOPPING IS SO SCARY. The salespeople hardly speak english and they run up to you like "DO YOU WANT THIS PRETTY FAN?!?!" and I'm like noo.... But you have to bargain. They'll offer you something for 25 and you have to keep your price at like 5. It's cool because everything is SO CHEAP. 6 dollars chinese money = 1 dollar american. And everything is like 10 chinese. I wish malls in america were like this. anywaaay, i bought stuff for everyone. The electronics section is hilarious because this USB drive said "2 gigabites" and the guy selling it wrote "600 gigabites" and he was trying to sell it to us. Also this crazy guy saw me looking at stamps then like...wouldn't let me leave and my group like helped push me away and we avoided that for a while. This woman wanted 180 for a print. jeremy was like "50" so she gave it to him. then he helped me bargain and i got mine for 40! yay! which is like $6.50 american money. so we left, rode the bus back, ate dinner, and now i'm here.
BYEEE
p.s. i can't call you.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
$80 in debt
I'm leaving for China in 3 days. Today we went shopping and I got shirts/puzzles/food for my Chinese family. The rest of the day I cleaned and watched Harry Potter on ABC Family. They have 'sneak-peaks' at the sixth movie, and Janet: I thought of you when they did a whole thing on Draco Malfoy. I could imagine your squealing, girlish reaction you would have to it.
Also, at one point in the movie, Dumbledore says "To Mr. Harry Potter for pure nerve and outstanding courage" but I could have sworn he said "pure love." So I bet Mommy EIGHTY DOLLARS that he said love, not nerve. But he said nerve. And she's not backing down about this. And I don't have $80. HELP.
Also, at one point in the movie, Dumbledore says "To Mr. Harry Potter for pure nerve and outstanding courage" but I could have sworn he said "pure love." So I bet Mommy EIGHTY DOLLARS that he said love, not nerve. But he said nerve. And she's not backing down about this. And I don't have $80. HELP.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Ello Govnah!
Hello! I'm not in China yet but I'm bored.
Ummmm. Janet is in Australia and I'm listening to music. And I read your (Janet's) blog and I'm sorry you had a bad trip. I guess I'll tell you what's going on at home.
There is nothing going on. Danny's being classy, as usual. Mommy goes to work, Daddy sleeps, I want a brownie batter blizzard.
But....guess what? I have a little red spot injury on the side of my nose. From Mommy hahahah. She really hates noses I guess. But here's how I got it: We were all watching Harry Potter 2 and Mommy was putting her smacker in her mouth and spitting it at me for fun. She spat it really up close at really hard at the little sharp turny part hit my nose. Ouchies.
And that's pretty much it. BBBBYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEE!
Ummmm. Janet is in Australia and I'm listening to music. And I read your (Janet's) blog and I'm sorry you had a bad trip. I guess I'll tell you what's going on at home.
There is nothing going on. Danny's being classy, as usual. Mommy goes to work, Daddy sleeps, I want a brownie batter blizzard.
But....guess what? I have a little red spot injury on the side of my nose. From Mommy hahahah. She really hates noses I guess. But here's how I got it: We were all watching Harry Potter 2 and Mommy was putting her smacker in her mouth and spitting it at me for fun. She spat it really up close at really hard at the little sharp turny part hit my nose. Ouchies.
And that's pretty much it. BBBBYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEE!
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