ryan should stop reading my blogs over my shoulder

i recently heard that every english class taught by foreigners at the school here has one student who isn't really a student but rather a communist spy put there to make sure that the teacher doesn't teach any subversive topics. they even tell the teacher this. and no, i am not making this up. we now suspect that one of our roommates is also serving the same purpose. in fact we are fairly certain. we are currently organizing an internal affairs task force to weed him/her out. ok, that last part i made up.

several students we know are members of the communist party, including tyler's roommate (since high school) and clark's roommate (since a few weeks ago or so). hopefully it won't have much of an affect on clark, though he has been looking a little pinker lately. maybe it's just the affect of today's sun on his fair new jersey skin.

my roommate just taught me how to play chinese chess, surprisingly fun. there's one piece that can jump across the entire board. after teaching me, he immediately kicked my ass in a game. so i did what any reasonable person would do: taught durrell how to play, then schooled him. twice. though to be fair the games were pretty close. i'm also learning how to play good ole weiqi, otherwise known as Go, otherwise know as that game with all the black and white stones.

the plan stands to head down to guilin for spring break, which starts on the eigth. so far just me and durrell, but others may canjia as we say over here in china. check for updates soon. in other news, no pictures this time around, mostly because i'm lazy.

Merry Easter

I just want to start by saying Merry Easter everyone. Well, this weekend I didn’t really do much because I have been sick all week. But don’t worry its not the la duzi it’s just a good old fashion cold. From a lot peoples’ away message back at home, it seems like they have the same thing. I feel your pain. On another note, I have decided to make this blog more interesting. How you ask? Well, I have decided to write part of this blog in the dialect that I speak at home. Last night, I heard my roommate speaking his home dialect and it inspired me to right part of this blog in my home dialect. You will know when I start using my home dialect because only like two people who read this blog can understand it.

So on Friday night, because I was still getting over my cold, I had the bright idea to go with some friends to a smoky reggae bar around Xi Hu. It really helped me feel better. But, even though it did not really help my health condition, I still had fun listen to all the old school rap songs I had not heard in awhile. Apparently, in China, Snoop Dog is considered rap music. After, the reggae bar started to get boring so I went with some other people to a techno dance club. Yeah, I stead there for about ten minutes and bounced. I knew that place was not for me when they started playing Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean” music with Martin Luther Kings “I have a dream speech.” Some how it just felt a little to sacrileges to me. I mean Billy Jean is a great song why did they have to ruin it. So after staying there for a total of about 20 minutes, I went back to the reggae bar. At the reggae bar, I spent the rest of the night pretending I was Courtney’s boyfriend. I don’t know why she was getting tired of getting hit on by every Chinese guy in the bar, she was getting hella free drinks. But, I guess her getting hella free drinks ended up being a problem, because by the end of the night I ended up having to carry her most of the way home. It was a great ended to a Friday night.

Because Friday night destroyed my already deteriorating health, I decided to just stay in on Saturday and Sunday. I on Saturday, after eating dinner with my roommate’s friends, which was really interesting because everyone in the room wanted to take a picture with me like I was a superstar or something. I decided I would spend the rest of the weekend putting in work on this little piece, I been getting at for a minute now. The little brizzle ain’t no dime, but I can work wit it. Let, me tell you my mouthpiece in Chinese, has improved. I can spit that fire now. So, it did not take that much work to get the little brizzle, feeling my mouthpiece. And yeah, that’s basically what I did this weekend. If you need some of this translated to you IM this man: JEBFB12

In other news, Golze and I have started a betting pool. We have started betting on when Clark is going to write his next blog. I have next week, but Golze has Sept. 2010. I think my odds are pretty good. If you want to get on this betting pool. Email Golze at Ihavepornfever@lovegoddess.com

Well I’m out

This blog was brought to you by the letter P.

As in:
Pimpin’ pretty preposterously producing phat prospects.

china grande

so this past weekend we all, except durrell, took a trip out to shanghai. the city is really awesome, and it bled me dry (i spent about a total of 30 dollars). just about everything is in english, which is quite the turn from everywhere else in china where nothing is in english, or at least in english that makes sense. (an example, the other day i saw a hairdresser's that was translated as "odium of hairdo").

tyler, courtney, and i stayed with our pal jeff, who studied in beijing with us but is now being a bum in shanghai, tutoring american kids for the sat and applying for paralegal jobs. he showed us around, and we saw all the usual sites, including people's square, the bund, the old city, and pudong (more on those later). below are some views of the city.

as you can see, shanghai is extremely modern and extremely beautiful and extremely nice. it really puts crap places like new york city to shame. the first picture is from people's square, the second from the top of the peace hotel on the bund.

in the late afternoon we hopped across the river to pay a visit to pudong, or, as i like to call it, #1 ultramodern desolate wasteland in china!!! pudong is the new economic zone of shanghai, which basically means no rules. the buildings are all supertall, with huge amounts of open space, and absolutely no people. it doesn't help that half of them are not even finished yet. i wouldn't be surprised if the place was inhabited entirely by robots. but we managed to dash across the huge empty streets to the jinmao (jinmiao?) building, which is the world's third or fourth tallest building. it is perhaps the only new building in shanghai that actually looks cool. we caught the elevator up to the hyatt at the top, which is the highest hotel in the world (inside a building). we had a drink at one of the many bars (the only one without a minimum charge) and watched the city light up. below is a picture of the building from the bottom i took at night.

that evening we went to taco bell for dinner! the only taco bell in china. it is called taco bell grande, and is actually a sit down restaurant. the food was pretty decent and the prices we surprisingly resonable for such a clearly western-geared place. the waiters all wore sombreros and ponchos and said hola and adios. quite a trip. we stole their hats at the end.

that night i bought some dvds.

the next day we checked out the shanghai chinatown. sounds weird, but it was where the original city was before the europeans came and built their colony away from the chinamen (i realize that is not the preferred nomenclature, but i wanted to instill some colonial feeling into the post). then, after trying in vain to catch a cab we walked over to the french concession to check out all the cool houses that are still there, included sun yat sen's house when he lived in shanghai for a long time. according to jeff, it's usually really easy to catch a cab, but we tried three or four times while we were there and failed every time, so i think maybe he was on crack. speaking of crack, recreational drugs are extremely against the law in china, dealing them can sometimes end with the death penalty. but apparently in shanghai the government lets the trade run relatively free in order to keep all the foreigners happy. just what i heard.

in other news, it turns out chinese propoganda is funny for about 2 months and 25 days, after which time it gets extremely annoying. last night in the cafeteria there was this music video playing (at full volume) of semi-traditional chinese signing. the video itself though was the story of some commie soldier during the revolution who got injured and was nursed back to health by a village girl. as soon as he got better they happily parted ways, him back to the front and her to continue sitting on her front step singing about how fucking great china is. i just wanted to smash my fist through the t.v. set. i just cannot understand how the students here just soak this crap up. i can't help it, but my level of respect for them as independent people, especially young people, just drops everytime i encounter this kind of situation. is this just me, some kind of cultural difference, or is it really as pathetic as i think it is?

上有天堂，下有苏杭

Lately, I have been receiving e-mails about whether or not I actually go to class. And the answer to the question is obviously, yes. I just don’t write blogs about going to class because that would so interesting and pointless, and I know that nobody cares that today I learned how to say the word “the.” So mom, yes I go to class everyday, and I didn’t come to China just to drink beer. So stop sending me e-mails about how I need to go to class and study more.

With that said this weekend was really fun. This week was a good week because my weekend started on Thursday, which also happened to be St. Paddy’s Day. Everyone’s plan for St. Paddy’s Day was to go to this Irish Pub that we found and get wasted. However, I planned to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day studying in my room, like a good student. That plan was quickly thrown out the window at about 9:30, but it wasn’t my fault. But before I explain that I have to explain something that happened earlier in the week.

After one of the basketball practices, the coach of the basketball team approached me and another Middlebury student, saying that she was studying English and that she wanted us to help her. But because we have a language pledge we said that we couldn’t. But she said that she would still like to hang out sometime, so we exchanged numbers. I didn’t really think that she would call me to hang out because the only thing that she wanted to do was have us teach her English. However, I was so wrong.

So on St. Paddy’s Day, right when I wake up from my nap to start studying again, like the good student I am, MOM, I get this call from the coach’s wife. She says that she wants to meet with me and some kid that she coaches to have tea. So I meet with her and the kid she coaches, his name is Chen Yu Long and her name is Shan Yi, to go have to somewhere on campus. As I enter the tea place it looks really realized and chill. Everyone is having a good time conversing. We end up sitting down at some table with other Chinese students and they are all speaking English. I come to find out that this tea place is place to come and practice your English. She tricked the hell out of me. But it was cool because they let me speak Chinese while the spoke English to me. Some them spoke really good English and some of them; I had no idea what the hell they were saying. It made me understand what I sound like when I speak Chinese. But some the Chinese people were really “Li Hai” and refused to let me speak to them Chinese, so I made them feel bad and corrected them every time they said something wrong, they quickly got the hell away from me.

After having fun doing that, Shan Yi decide to take me, Chen Yu Long, and this girl that I meet at the English speaking place, named Yi Hui out to the bar. At the bar we played a lot of drinking games. It was hella fun. It was much better than studying. After downing a few beers because I wasn’t so good at their Chinese drink games They liked playing games where you have to think and stuff. Not so good at that when I have been drinking, or even when I am sober for that matter. But after getting right, Shan Yi took us all out to eat and walk around Xi Hu. By the time I got back to my room it was like 2 a.m. So much for the studying plans. I guess I have been going out a lot since I have been here.

St. Paddy’s Day was Thursday. Friday was one of the most interesting days I had in China. The day started normal went to my one and only class and after that I went with my roommate to his basketball class. In his class, I swear there is this kid that looks like the Chinese version of Prince. He has the little pencil type mustache, really skinny, short, tight clothes, and everything. He was even really pretty like Prince is; I tried not to look him in the eyes. The only difference is that he didn’t play basketball as well as Prince does. I heard that Prince is hella good at BBall, this kid throw the ball over the backboard, so a little different.

After playing ball the strangest thing happened to me. It made me feel like a breezy. These three Korean girls gamed me down (for those that don’t speak West Coast Slang that means they hit on me). It was hella awkward, especially because they used broken English to do it. One of them came up to me and was like, “My flend rinks you ham some.” I didn’t know what to say. After she was like give me your number before I don’t want it anymore. I didn’t know what to do but give her the number. I was just in shock that was getting gamed down by these Korean girls in broken English, and that it was working, because they ended up getting my number. I wonder what their game is like in Korean, because in broken English it was off the hook. I have to remember how they spit their game so that I can use it when I get back to the States.

After being turned into a breezy I prepared to go to Suzhou for the weekend, this also brings me to the title of this blog, which the majority of you reading this probably can’t understand. It says, “Shang You Tian Tang, Xia You Su Hang,” which means, “In heaven there is paradise, on earth Suzhou and Hangzhou.” It is a famous Chinese proverb. Another famous Chinese proverb, probably my favorite is, “上有天使，下有马渡.” This reads, “Shang You Tian Shi, Xia You Ma Du,” this means “In heaven there is angels, on earth there is Ma Du. Personally, I think this proverb is so true.

After hearing this Chinese Proverb, and hearing that Suzhou is supposed to be the Venice of the East and filled with beautiful gardens, I made travel plans. We left around 6 pm for Suzhou and didn’t get there until 10 pm. Because my roommate was busy I ended up going with two of my roommate’s friends, one named “Re Qing” and the other one the call “Ye Zhu.” Ye Zhu is his nickname, which means THE BOAR in English. Here is a picture, tell me if the name fits:



He is really like 5’9’’. I have grown a little since I have been in China. Because we got to Suzhou kind of late there wasn’t much to do so Ye Zhu and me decided to go and see what Suzhou’s nightlife be like. We walked around for a while and finally found this street full of foreigners and bars. After walking around for 20 minutes we finally found a bar that was playing hip hop music. As we enter the bar, I quickly notice that everyone in the bar is of the female nature. The girl that greeted me at the door quickly shows me an open sat at the bar. As I am sitting down, I glace to my left and notice that this foreigner is intensely sucking face with some Chinese girl. I see this and think what the fuck, this is not normal. As I see this I quickly stand up to reevaluate my situation. I look back around at my surrounds and think, hey all the people in here are female. As continue to think to myself, I say self, this isn’t a bar, silly, this is a brothel. At the point I got scared and ran out of the bar screaming like a little girl. I am much to innocent to be in a place like that. After that incident we gave up looking for good bars and just went back to the hotel for the night.

On Saturday, We got early start to try to an experience the paradise that is Suzhou. We started out by going to a place called Huqiu Shan (Tiger Hill). Huqiu Shan has a famous pagoda named Yunyan Ta (Cloud Rock Pagoda). Sometime in the 10th century it started to lean, much like The Leaning Tower of Pizza. Here is a picture of it leaning in all of its beauty.



This is me and Re Qing’s friend, she goes to school ins Suzhou. In reality, this pagoda was not leaning that much. You actually could barely tell that it was leaning at all. Here is what it really looked like:



However, it was still pretty cool. The gardens surrounding the pagoda were the real highlight of Huqiu Shan. They were are beautiful with there own fill and flavor.



After going to Huqiu Shan we walked around for a little while and saw so of the other sites that Suzhou has to offer. We stopped by this really crowded shopping area near the temple of Xuanmiao Guan. It is a cool area because it combines the traditional style builds with modern companies. The area was pretty crowd so decided to leave and explore more of Suzhou.

Suzhou is a beautiful water town but I am pretty sure that its waterways can’t compare to Venice’s. However, Suzhou is filled with absolutely beautiful gardens. Here is pictures of another garden that we went to that day, called Zhouzheng Yuan (Humble Administrator’s Garden).



After going leaving this garden walked around and went in to a few shops near by. In one of the shops I bought these really cool Chairman Mao and Culture Revolution T-shirts. At first the lady wanted like 8 dollars for one. But after some intense haggling I talked her down to 11 dollars for three. According to my Chinese friends my bargaining skills are pretty Li Hai. So if any you come to China, I can get you a good deal.

After so intense hanging I was pretty hungry, so went back to around our hotel and ate. And after eating we pretty much walked around until we were bored and went back to the hotel and went to bed at like 10 pm.

The next morning because Re Qing wanted to hit on his friend, Ye Zhu and I went to another the most famous garden in Suzhou called Wangshi Yuan (Garden of the Master of the Nets). It was cool but not that cool, I think Zhouzheng Yuan was better. However, this garden was still beautiful. Here are some pictures:



After Wangshi Yuan, Ye Zhu and I went to Panmen (Coiled Gate). Panmen might be the prettiest place I went to out of all the place. Panmen is the last remaining original city gate in Suzhou. Around the city gate is a wooden and brick pagoda. The area around the pagoda and gate was beautiful. The first picture in the series is from the top of the pagoda, which was incredibly high, good thing I am scared of heights.



The last picture in the series is me preparing to go turkey hunting when I get back to Middlebury. After going to Panmen Ye Zhu and I meet back up with Re Qing and his friend. We just spent the rest of the time in Suzhou around Xuanmiao Guan, shopping. After we finished shopping we just left.

I have to say the best thing Suzhou is not the gardens or the beautiful waterways. It was the Xiao Long Bao (these dumplings). A lot of cities have Xiao Long Bao, but by far Suzhou’s Xiao Long Bao are the best. If you ever go to Suzhou you have to get some of the Xiao Long Bao.

Well, because I don’t really no how to end this blog I will end it with random pictures of Suzhou. Enjoy. Oh, the first picture is of a stone liger. I guess in ancient China they had ligers.

It's Always Great to Meet Your Fans.

Last Tuesday, I got a chance to meet some of our blogs most loyal fans. It is weird to meet somebody who knows a lot about you and you don’t know that much about them. Anyway, meeting the Golze family was fun. Golze, Joy, and I all meet them at this museum right on the edge of Xi Hu. The museum had a lot of old stuff from different periods of time in Chinese history. So it was basically your typical museum. The part of the museum that I found most interesting were these old paints of monks, but the paints looked more like cartoons. To be more specific the paints looked a lot like the cartoons figures in this children’s book that we were forced to read in Beijing called San Mao. Other than the these cartoons, I thought the museum was not that interesting, probably because I really didn’t understand what I was looking at, maybe should have read the signs or something. But who reads the signs when they go to a museum. After the museum we walked up a hill near by to get a better view of the lake. But all that we could really see were tree branches; I guess we chose the wrong the hill.

After spending some time on the hill chatting we walked down to the restaurant. The restaurant was damn good. Golze, chose one of the best restaurants that Hangzhou has offer. If any you ever go there, I suggest you try the fish. It was great going to this restaurant, because I was getting tired of eating at the cheap restaurants around the school. What made this experience even better was that I didn’t have to pay. Thanks again Golze family.

When dinner was finished we all went to a street called He Fang Jie, it is an old school Chinese style street, where you can buy Hangzhou’s specialty stuff and so ancient looking stuff too. He is an example of some the specialty stuff the street has to offer:



This guy was nasty with his hammer chisel combo. He had beat out all types of designs on plates. I think my favorite one he had was of this dragon. But the best part of the street is the guys doing tricks pouring tea. They are like Harlem Globe Trotters with teapots. They were doing all kinds of tricks like behind the back tea pouring, spinning the teapot on one finger, over the shoulder tea pours, and even hitting the teapots with no look pours. It was probably the best Chinese trick pouring I have ever seen and the only Chinese trick pouring I have ever seen. Here is a picture:



This guy is doing the under the arm poor. Can you do that? I think not. I know Golze taught you his favorite Chinese word, and this is a time that you can definitely say this guy is Li Hai or his skills are Li Hai. Because we went to He Fang Jie at night, certain parts of the street were light up with these crazy lights:



The lights gave the place more of that old school Chinese feel. I need to get one of those for my room next year. So when I bring back my Chinese maid she can feel at home. Oh, yeah I am going to hire a Chinese maid for my room next year, I mean I have to take advantage of the cheap labor here. I mean that is why I came to China. After He Fang Jie, we took Golze’s family back to the hotel, where they gave us a lifetime supply of hand sanitizer, which I was so grateful for because your hands can never be too clean in China. Then came the best part of the trip the crowded bus ride back to school, I swear there were like 200 people on this bus, we barely were able to fit in. My face was pushed against Joy’s. It was a little tight.

Today, I went to play Golze in that stick bird Chinese game, which I found out has an English name called shuttlecock. But recently when we went to go play some class was going on, and recently every time we go to play there has been so class going on. I think Golze chooses these times because he is scared to play me. He knows last time was a fluke. Hey, Golze why don’t you be a man and stuff ducking me? I promise the butt kicking I am going to give you won’t hurt that bad.

Hey, to anybody who true loves me and wants to give me a package of some sort, for example, like my family, who has not even called me once since I have been in China. Ah, Am I still your son? What the flip is going on here? But anyway my mailing address is:

Durrell Mack
Middlebury College School In China
Center for International Programs
Zhejiang University of Technology
Number 6, Zhaohui District
Hangzhou 310032 CHINA

I thought I would end this blog on a happy note and with some pictures. Here are some pictures that have to do with previous blogs:



This is me feeling the effects of the La Duzi. I really look like one of those messed up vampires from Blade 2. China actually might be the best diet, I have ever been on, even if I didn’t want to lose weight.



The stuff that is not the crawfish is these spicy, hot ass peppers. The crawfish especially red because of the hot stuff on it. That crawfish actually died from drinking too much hot sauce.



This is me about to die from eating the crawfish that ate too much hot sauce. Also the massive of amounts of beer that I consumed during the eating process might have contributed to me looking like that. Hey, that shit was hot.

we have a winner!

and the winner is...arlen! in response to my last post about "bumf" he came up with this explanation:

"according to the internet, bumf is british military slang for
annoyingly pointless bureaucratic paperwork that you might as well
wipe you ass with. bumf started out as bum fodder but was eventually
shortend to bumf and adopted to mean either toilet paper or useless
paperwork. i'm not really sure how widely used this is."

good enough for me.

durrell's post is by and large correct. this weekend was great fun, even though it was freakin cold which exacerbated my already starting cold, so that i was good and sick for when my family came to visit. but i nevertheless perserved, partly by skipping class and spending time with them. anyhoo, i would like to point out that i was in the group in front of durrell when we went hiking. our program's organizer was our leader, and he basically just decided to head off into the woods. there wasn't a trail anyway. we ended up climbing up this gorge. it was seriously dangerous stuff, but fun. i haven't seen durrell's pictures but i'm sure they capture the scenery. here are some others.

me reenacting hitting my head on the five-foot doorway.



luke using the facilities china nong cun style, while a tour group wanders around overhead, oblivious to his indescretion.

p.s. durrell is trying to use some ridiculous scrolling picture thing. can anyone tell me if that actually works? send me a screenshot or something. i want to make sure it's not messing up my beautiful blog.

Awesome Sunglasses and Hospital Shoes

I want to start off by giving a big thanks to all the fans that wrote me fan letters this week. I am glad that you love our blog, I have heard that Clarks have received the warmest welcome, which makes me a little better but hey, what can you do. He is a great writer. The fan letter that touched my heart the most this week was from my friend Anna Marks, a.k.a. Quick Draw. It touched my heart the most because I forgot that she existed and it made me feel good that she was still out there think about me. Anna thanks for the letter.

Enough of the fan letter business, I know that you are all dying to know what I did this weekend, because I am dying to know the same thing. I kind of forgot. Oh yeah, this weekend everyone in the program all went to the “Nong Cun” (that is Chinese for country side, or village area, or Chinese ghetto, whatever explanation you understand most). I know what you are think, why would anyone want to go to the Nong Cun? I asked the teachers that took us the same question, but even though we were in the Cun all weekend it was still fun, all except for the part when we got lost in the woods and our guide left us in the middle of nowhere. But that part of the story comes later.

On Friday night, we all took the night train to Wenzhou, Wenzhou is actually the city my roommate is from, but we did not go to the area that he lives, which is supposedly nice. We went to the outskirts of the city, something like instead of going to Boston to go have fun, you go to Middlebury. Because we took the night train to Wenzhou we arrived hella early. Once we got to we all had to take a bus to go to the actual place. The bus ride to the Nong Cun was filled with beautiful scenery and sights off the local people hard at work. I don’t actually know any of this for fact because I was doing this:



But I heard it was really nice. And the few times that I raised my head from my wonderful slimber, probably the best sleep I got all trip, the scenery was really beautiful.

Once we finally arrived to the Nong Cun, I was disappointed to see that the snow had continued to get heavier. However, I was not disappointed to see the Nong Cun that we were staying at. It was actually really nice.



This picture does not do it just but the scenery around the Cun was nice and the snow gave it a little flavor. The best part about the place was all the animals that were running around randomly. They had geese, chickens, dogs, and cows; they probably had other things pigs before we came. But I think that we ate most of them for lunch and dinner. Here is a randow cow and her calf running around the Cun, like they owned the place or something.



Those cows are like I don’t eat red meat. But anyway, after some free time on our own we all assembled to go on a hike through the mountains of this Nong Cun. Some people came well prepared. For example her:



I didn’t realize how well hospital shoes helped with hiking. I don’t really know how the helped but she seemed to think that they would help in some way. Maybe because hospital shoes have a lot of traction on the bottom.

The start of the hike was not that difficult. It was actually a nice relaxed hike through what seemed to be just he hills behind the Nong Cun. Here is what the start of the trail looked like:



But I was very mistaken. The path started to get steeper and more slippery as we went future and then finally. There was no path. At first our awesome tour guide with the super sweet sunglasses:



Was leading the way for us. Then all of a sudden he disappeared. It was like he was some guest with leading us through the forest with really awesome sunglasses to protect his eyes from the snow. But since he left we decided to follow the train of others that came before us. I don’t know what kind of route the people that came before us went on, but it was like they were on crack when they decided to chose there direction, and we are dumb asses for following them. This is what the route looked like:



Because the route was not really a route, and more like Tarzan jumping around through the forest, many people lost their footing on the trail Here is Cahill biting it.



And here is Jamie in the same spot as Cahill, doing the same thing.



But the funniest part about Jamie biting it is that she took people out with her. You can’t see it in the picture but Jamie took out this little Chinese girl that was standing in front of her. After a while we finally caught up with the group who’s path we were following and our tour guide.Some how he knew what direction we were going and meet up in front of us with the other group. I tell you he was some guess type creater, creter, crater, creyter, he was some ghost type thing. After we finally meet up with the rest of the group we took a snack break.



Yabazaba, you’re my only friend. When you are hungry, let me tell you a snickers really does satisfy the hunger. When the break was over, we finally descended down the mountain, but this time through a much better trail. The best part of the descending was any time that we got to flat land that was safe enough to walk on. People started ambushing each other with snowballs. It was like World War 0.0001 with snowballs.

After that we all went back to our rooms for a little while to kill time before dinner. The best part about the Nong Cun in freezing cold weather when you are all wet, is that there is no heat. This me chillin the bed with the girl that Jamie took out, and me trying my hardest to catch a cold. I succeed too.



After sitting freezing in the rooms it was time for dinner. I never realized how much that Chinese people love American Republican leaders, and the really like Jordan too. I mean, Jordan did score 63 points in a single game, who wouldn’t love Jordan. And apparently, I look like Jordan. Maybe its my bald head, but you decide.



Because I too love our American Republican leaders, I tried to imitate my favorite one of them all.



Do you think I look like him? I mean he is my cousin on my mother’s uncle’s brother’s father’s sister’s mother’s dog’s roommate’s side of the family. So I should looke like him a little bit. After dinner we all went a did the tradition thing that everyone does a hike. We went and roasted marshmallows. No, I am just kidding we are China, chinese people don’t roast marshmallows. We did something better, we roasted goat meat and sweet potatoes.



I didn’t really roast anything but my feet as you can see in the picture. I most admit, the roasted sweet potatoes where pretty damn good. I didn’t really eat much of the goat meat because I was afraid of getting the la duzi again. I am just no starting to gain back weight. I can’t let myself look like a cancer patient again. After roasting the meat, I went to bed. The bed that I slept in was pretty awesome.



I think it was a traditional style Nong Cun bed but who knows. The bed was nice and soft, but the only thing was the room was cold as hell, so I didn’t get much sleep that night. The next morning was great because the sun finally came out and it stopped snowing.



The Nong Cun looked nice in the sun light, but I was ready to get the hell out of there and go to a new place. We ended up going to a different Nong Cun. It was the rival Nong Cun. There is often rival gangs fights between these two Nong Cuns. Here is the gang colors of the other Nong Cun we went to:



I think there gang colors are flipping sweet. I really want to get a suit like that. I like this new Nong Cun better than the one we stayed in, it has water front housing and with majesticalestic mountains in the back. Majesticalestic means majestic with a little cal and estic added to the back. Here is my roommate stand on some water front properity.



This Nong Cun is really famous for its honey. Everyone was afraid but I went and spoke with the bee keepers about there honey making tactics.



But once everyone saw that I didn’t get stung they all came over to have a look too. Unfortuately, Clark got stung on the nose and his nose swelled up like a ballon.



The rest of Clark swelled up because of the price of beer in China. And maybe all the Chinese food he has been eaten contributed to it too.

I really liked this Nong Cun for another reason. I reminded me of the summer I spent in the South with me grandma except everything in the Nong Cun was Chinese. But this Nong Cun had a lot similars to the south for example, this Church in the middle of the fields with one dirty road leading to it.



Jesus Walks, even in the Nong Cun of China. Another thing that reminded me of the South is that families just sit on the porch and talk on Sunday afternoons.



I though that this Nong Cun was a really cool place. It had a really peaceful feel to it. After going to that Nong Cun we went to this place with beautiful scenery and lots of waterfalls. The water falls and the mountains were like something I have never seen before, probably because it was a place I had never seen before.



At the every top of this mountain waterfall area was another Nong Cun.



It also had this bull. This bull really didn’t like foreigners. Everytime we tried to walk by it, it started going crazy. Finally, I challegened him to a butting heads contest, but he didn’t want to ram with me. He got scared.



Maybe because I wasn’t wearing red. After the waterfall place we caught the train back to Hangzhou.

And yesterday, I went to Xi Hu (West Lake). Xi Hu is a really famous like in China. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful lakes china has to offer. It really reminded me a lot of Lake Washington. Here are some the pics. It was a cloudy day today so the pictures might not be that great, but enjoy them anyway.



And today, my only plans are to have dinner with Golze’s family. I wish my family and friends were considerate enough to come visit me or ate least give me a call or write or something. Well anyway, I’m out.

Oh yeah, I heard that the phone number people tried didn’t work so here it is again.

This is the cell number: 011-86-137-3823-1315

This is the room number: 011-86-571-8881-7128