On Thursday my host sister and her friend took me to get some school stuff in the middle of Nanjing. It was the first time taking the Underground Metro in Nanjing which, starting Monday, I will be doing now everyday to get to school. One weird thing about walking around in China is that everyone stares at me. It's not even just like looking at me and then looking away, it's like intent staring and never looking away until they can't see me anymore. I think I will have to get used to that because there is not another single blonde person in the whole city--or any tall people. I have surprisingly seen a few tall Chinese people though. People always ask my host sister where I am from, which is mei guo (United States), or they sometimes shout something at me in English like: "Hello" or "What's your name?" It's actually pretty amusing sometimes. My host sister and I laugh about that. The driving is also very bad in China. While there are lanes, nobody really cares, and everyone is constantly cutting everyone else off. Also, nobody really wears seat belts, except sometimes the driver. I have to say, wearing a seat belt is a very hard habit to break when trying to fit in. I always put it on and my host sister says I don't have to wear it.
I have also been learning more Chinese! My host dad doesn't speak any English, but he told my host sister he thinks I am very clever for learning how much I have because Mandarin is a very hard language. I am super happy about that! Whenever I say something right my host sister always claps. I think that when school starts I will learn even more because my Chinese classes will start and my Chinese friends will all speak it to each other.
The food in China is very good. It is very different from American Chinese food, and the only thing I have eaten that is relatively the same is the Orange Chicken, but even that is better in China. I have also eaten some weird things. I ate sea snails! You pull them by their foot out of the shell and dip them into sauce. They aren't actually all that bad! We had a whole fish, with bones, eyes, skin, everything. I had bamboo, which was good. I had quail eggs, which I actually do not like at all. They are purple and look rotten, and taste kinda rotten also. Throughout my whole stay so far I have eaten lots of stuff, and most of the time I have no idea what it is--it could pretty much be anything. And I am very unhappy to report that I have officially eaten at McDonald's. The food they have at a Chinese McDonald's is different than in America, and I did not like it at all. The drinks at the McDonald's are very weird. The first one I had was super good! I think it was sprite with soft-serve ice cream on top, I'm not sure what kind, probably vanilla. The other drink I had was extremely gross. It was some sort of bitter, milky tea, with the weirdest things in it. They were these brownish black, gummy, rubbery, slimy balls of goo that were kind of sweet, that were about a half an inch in diameter. So, overall the tea thing with the gooey balls was gross. But I do love the Chinese food. I also found out that I have been holding my chopsticks wrong, so its been interesting re-learning how to pick up food.
On Thursday after we went shopping, my host sister and I went to the Nanjing International School. We went there with a family friend of her's whose son went there and she didn't know English, so she needed Susan to translate for her. Susan brought me along because she still doesn't know some English words and she wanted me to explain what they meant to her. The International School was so beautiful. It must be new because the campus was just amazing. They put effort into the buildings so that from the outside it resembled some traditional Chinese architecture, but inside it was super modern and high tech. The parent meeting was cute, with a lot of little kids, but it was also a little boring.
When Susan and I were taking a walk on Thursday night through our neighborhood she told me that Mr. Ding, my teacher-mentor-person, wanted to know if I would be willing to do an interview for some Youth Olympics thing that is going to be in Nanjing this year. I have learned to, in almost all circumstances, never say no, so I said yes, but I'm not really sure what I'm actually supposed to do! Once I talk to Mr. Ding on Monday I will know more about what I'm actually supposed to be doing, and why. This is one of the most important things I have learned so far on my trip: trust people. I have been sent on trains with nothing more than an address, Susan orders for me in restaurants, takes me places when I have no idea what or where they are, and it has all turned out great. And they have been amazing experiences.
I hope to write more soon, but for now, zai jian.