HELLO!

I really hope this dead blog doesn't mean everybody died this summer. Where are you guys???

Please post here cuz Facebook cannot be accessed in China anymore :( ... Unless you're Yas and have too much time on your hands to get around the blocks. Miss you and hope to hear from you soon!!

Shanghai and Clubbing in Jiangyin

Peter and I arrived back from a 2 1/2 day jaunt to Shanghai yesterday evening. Shanghai, I think, is an awesome city. Plenty to do and see, good food, very international...Nobody gave me a second look, which was a nice change from the stares in Jiangyin--except for the creepy dude at the Oriental Pearl Tower who kept "secretly" trying to take my picture on his camera phone...weeeeeird.

Anywho. Pete's dad was with for the past week (leaving today), so we were driven to Shanghai in a Benz and stayed at his former colleague's ridiculously expensive apartment in the center of Shanghai. Lol. Got to love parents. His friend was extremely generous; he's older and the rest of his family is currently living in the States, so he seems kind of lonely. We are invited to stay at his place every weekend if we want; we will probably take one more trip before we leave China.

The first night we went to check out The Bund--the boardwalk area in Shanghai that separates the older quarter from the more modernized section, but it was completely closed off for construction in preparation for the World Expo in 2010. The next day we went to People's Park and the Shanghai Museum to brush up on our Chinese history. Then it was off to the Oriental Pearl Tower, the space-agey looking tower that is in every picture of Shanghai nowadays. One cool newer feature of the tower is the glass floor on the top where you can walk out on to the glass and see the entire city beneath you--pretty trippy. There is also a really cool museum in the basement of the tower all about Shanghai's history. Finally, we went shopping in one of the older areas in Shanghai at night and ate at one of the most famous restaurants for xiao long bao (Chinese soup dumplings). I love xiao long bao, but IMO their's were nothing special. Went back to the apartment at night to watch Wimbeldon--which ended at 2 in the morning here. Yeah, I was asleep. Pete and his dad stayed up to watch the whole thing.

Next day was relaxing. We got a small tour of Chengxing's office in Shanghai, lounged and slept in Pete's dad's hotel room, watched an episode of 30 Rock, ate a large lunch, and finally got an 80 minute foot massage for $9 each. Not bad. The bus ride back to Jiangyin was 2 hours.

That night we were invited to a dance club with some of the tutors and a student from my WEB school. The experience was...interesante. There were actually quite a lot of people there because a more well-known singer came to perform (she's kind of a B-List Chinese singer). But NOBODY dances. Why? "Chinese people are shy." Pity. They stand around and imbibe watered-down drinks with some small food. The music, though, was hilarious. Mostly Britney Spears mixed with some old bubble-gummish hip hop. Oh, and Aaron Carter. Yes, Aaron Carter. Remember that line dance we did in high school? :) You bet. The singer sang English songs the entire time we were there: Pussycat Dolls' "Buttons" and J.Lo's "Jenny from the Block," etc.

<3 Til next time...

Clubbing in Beijing

So last night I went clubbing (yes, I went clubbing) with a bunch of the American students and we had a lot of fun. It was at this club called Propaganda and students didn't have to pay a cover charge so that was pretty awesome. And of course the alcohol was ridiculously overpriced. A small bottle of Tsingtao was 20 kuai, when at a chuar stand in front of our dorm we can but a large bottle for 2.5 kuai. The greatest part of the night was when Flo Rida's "Low" came on and when Soldier Boy came on. We had guessed that since everyone besides one black guy and I are white, that the Chinese people would be watching the way we dance aaaannndd we were right. During the chorus of "Low" when they repeat low like eight times or so, we did the whole getting low thing, and at the beginning of the song we were the only ones doing it. By the third lowx8 part almost everyone around us was doing it. The same thing with Soldier Boy, when we did the dance people around us tried to copy us. It was very amusing.

Yas

Illegal Hello from China

So I finally managed to get access to this blog from Beijing, which I'm really happy about. I have no idea how to work this thing and I don't think I have that much html stuff available because I'm going through a proxy. I wish I had pictures to post of facebook or something but this entire week has essentially been studying and sleeping. But now it's the weekend and tonight I'm going to see an acrobats show, and this Sunday I'm going to Tian'anmen Square!

Most interesting things I've done so far...
1) Eat a donkey burger (more like a small donkey hoagie)
2) Be in the studio audience for some Chinese talk show that was talking about the gaokao (高考). It's like the Chinese equivalent of the SAT but the score on this exam determines where you can go. I couldn't understand a single thing they were saying.
3) Gotten used to carrying around toilet paper because public bathrooms don't have them
4) Getting to a subway station and then having to walk for at least 20 minutes through the station (when we were going the right way) to get to our platform

The food here is cheap and delicious and hasn't made me sick yet, so yayyyyy.

Yas

Happy Birthday Awani!!!!

We love you!!

Reunions

I started off my summer by working 80 hours from Thursday afternoon (May 28) through Tuesday morning (June 2). I learned several things:
1) Working two 40 hour weeks is a much better model than squeezing two weeks of work into one.
2) It is very tiring and not so much fun to work 80 hours straight.
3) People are unhappy when you run out of food at meals.
4) An older woman talked to me for a while and told me that Sonia Sotomayor wrote a 180-page thesis. She told me not to write a thesis that long because no one has the time/desire to read it.
5) Men who graduated in 1954 might ask if you carry a pair of sewing scissors; they probably don’t realize that you think it’s a sexist question.
6) I learned the expression: “Let’s high tail it out of this popsicle stand.” To be taken seriously, one should not use that expression.
7) White button down shirts always look good with bow-ties.

I was working in dining services coordinating the student workers for the 15th and 55th Reunions. We served dinners, lunches, breakfasts, set many tables, watched buffets, waited (tables and in general), and bused a lottt of tables. After Reunions, we worked at Baccalaureate day, Class Day, and Graduation. I ladled a lot of lemonade and trayed more cookies than I have ever seen in my life. It almost made me not want to eat cookies again (almost). I made friends with a large number of student center dining staff people.



Since being home from crazy-weekend, I’ve mostly been hanging out and preparing for Turkey/related travels. Danielle and I visited Awani for an early happy birthday, speaking of which… HAPPPY BIRTHDAY AWANI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll upload a picture later from my dying but faithful camera and self-timer.

I leave Friday noon-time for Crete. I’ll be there for a week before flying to Istanbul. I’ll post again from a gorgeous Greek island…
Til then,
Rebecca

Maine

So I've been home for almost a week, but thought I'd give an very short update on the Maine trip. It consisted mostly of (a) eating (b) eating (c) some walking (d) eating. Some pictures to enjoy:














This is an area called Prout's Neck where the Black Point Inn is located--a hotel that hasn't changed its style since the Great Gatsby era.





















The Portland Headlight















I spent the last day wandering around Portland in search of a fat whoopie pie (if you have never had the fortune to indulge in a whoopie pie, you are seriously missing out). Though I stopped in at least a dozen bakeries and cafes, Portland failed me miserably. However, the Lobster Shack at Two Lights pulled through with a whoopie pie the size of my head. I sat outside to enjoy it and the great view!














In other news, my brother did our senior prom on replay this past weekend...

Look how handsome he was!













Apparently nothing too crazy happened in Long Branch at post post prom, though Andrew Lavadera was there to "chaperon" and it sounds like he did more encouraging than supervising.

And now I'm off for a stroll around the neighborhood!

Later,
Danielle

Found This, Felt Like Reminiscing

Comment 1: Typical dress by all of us.... emo peter phase, blue/black for yas, me looking fly as usual ;)
Comment 2: Note the two Ryan's in the background
Comment 3: I think I tied better tie knots then than I do now.... which is sad

Brazil is going fine... I think I might be going out/partying tomorrow with one/some of the guys that I work with. scchweeet....

Colorado

Hello all! I'm sorry I haven't posted earlier, but nothing too exciting has happened yet in Colorado. I've done a lot of touring around Colorado Springs and Denver- but most of the time has been spent getting my brother ready for deployment tomorrow. I've seen a lot of Fort Carson, which is where he is stationed- not too interesting. 

This week has been fun spending time with my parents and brother, touring around the area and packing up his apartment. He has a ridiculous amount of stuff and not much of it has been moved yet because he's been helping out his friends get their stuff into storage areas. I can't believe how quickly this week went by- as we drop him off tomorrow at 9am for a year. Crazy. 

Anyway, after this, we head towards Iowa by car to visit my extended family for a week. That should be fun as usual, but it will be a bit of a haul getting there. We're stopping in parts of Nebraska, including Red Cloud, which is the hometown of author Willa Cather. So stoked. 

I hope all is well. My excursions aren't quite as exciting as Hong Kong or Brazil, but I figured that if Yas is posting about his stupid parking ticket, that I should say hello and try this out. Hope everyone is having fun at home (or wherever) and I will post later on in the week. 

-Em

Hong Kong

So I've been in Hong Kong for a week and a half now... sorry for not posting earlier

we're staying at the hyatt next to the chinese university of hong kong (CUHK). Its really nice here since the hotel just opened up to the public. i think we're the first ones in our suites. for 3 ppl we have a living room and 2 bedrooms, one with two twins and one with a queen. 3 bathrooms. really cool

we have class every morning from 8:30 - 11:30, and im taking 2 classes. comparative strategic management and international marketing. its a mix of expat professors and local-ish ones. It's been really interesting hearing the experiences and perspectives of the local ones. expat ones are kind of boring...

most days we also have business site visits, so we are going in to different companies and places to visit and they usually give us a presentation and we ask questions and stuff. we've been to some government stuff (like invest hk, icac (anticorruption)) and also places like the jockey club. Jockey club was really cool since they gave us a box after to watch the horse races and gamble. I did all right that day, i was only -$12 HK for the day. (which is less than $2) won most of it back on the last race. Other ppl were -$100+

among other things... we've been to LKF a couple times, which is the main bar district. its pretty fun. that and soho, which is a big expat area where there is all kinds of cuisine. i swear there are more white ppl there than asian ppl too... kind of weird at this point since you get used to seeing asian ppl everywhere...

ppl on the program have been pretty cool so far. some cooler than others. its just a bunch of gtown kids and we all take class together. so not much with the local students =/

for some of them, its their first time out of the US... and a couple are bone headed spoiled preppy white kids who are racist. (sorry not the biggest fan of them) but there are also a bunch of really cool ppl.

anyway... thats my first post

hope everyone is doing well

skype me @ peterylai

good talk

pete

Parking Ticket

My exciting summer starts with a parking ticket. woooot...........I parked on the side of the road at 12:50pm, it was no parking from 1pm-4pm on a Tuesday, and of course it was a Tuesday. Stupid town of Elizabeth.

-Yas

In Brazil!

Hey guys, hope you're all well.

I got into Brazil this morning and now I've settled in to my accomodations here. I'm living in a sort of dorm/house with about 14 other people, mostly students at the University here in Campinas. They're pretty nice so far, but only a few of them speak limited English. The Portuguese is definitely going to be challenging but overall I'm pretty excited about everything. I met my co-workers for the summer and my boss, and they seem pretty excited about having me. I just hope I can do all the stuff they want me to.

Alright, I'll check back in again soon!

-Rollin