09-30-2019

 

Blurry picture of some lanterns up at my school in preparation for the holiday starting tomorrow! Yay, no class until next Tuesday!

The holiday is 国庆节 Guo2 qing4 jie2, which is a celebration of the founding of the People's Republic of China. October 1st marks the 70th anniversary of the country (established 1949).

There are lots of flags everywhere around the city. You can see a few decorations in the picture below.

09-29-2019

 

snooping as usual

It's Sunday, but everyone had class today to make up for a previous Friday that was off for a holiday.

During my lunch break, I decided to walk up the stairs to the top floor of the main building where my classes are. These were my observations:

-there are 12 or 13 floors (I don't remember the exact number now!)

-Classrooms on floors 1-7

-Rooms on floors 8-10 appeared to be offices

-Rooms on floors 11-12 also appeared to be offices, but there were no signs labeling them as such, so who knows what they are used for, or if they are even used at all

-the top floor, whichever number it was, had one room. The door was closed. I didn't try to open it. 

And the mirror in the picture? It was in the hallway of one of the floors, I don't remember which, maybe 10? None of the other floors had one. Who knows why it's there.

The bag I'm holding had some oranges that I bought.

09-28-2019

 

Ukraine friend showed me this food stand? shop? place? where they sell chicken wraps. 

On Thursday, I went by myself and brought the wrap back to my room to eat. My roommate saw it and asked where I got it. I told her, and yesterday she went to buy one by herself (I probably would have gone with her, but I had class). 

Our plan was to get Korean food for dinner tonight, but the place was closed, so we ended up here. Again.

No regrets, though. The wraps are filling, delicious, and relatively cheap.

Below is a picture of the wrap I bought on Thursday.

09-27-2019

 

Hey, it's me!

I gave a short speech (written for me) at the new student orientation today. An acquaintance sent me this picture of me speaking.

The orientation was sooo long, it went on about 3-4 hours. I think it was partly because they also interpreted/translated all the information into Mongolian and English. I took a short sound recording of the content because I found that process interesting, but I can't figure out how to upload it 😕 You think it would be simpler than uploading a picture or a video, but I guess not!

 

09-26-2019

 

Yesterday I was thinking, surely I took other pictures today? And I did, I just overlooked them.  

This was my breakfast yesterday! 奶黄包 (custard buns)

I'm sure they did very little in the way of nutrition, but they were tasty c:

09-25-2019

 

Didn't take any pictures other than lecture slides today, so here's one I took on Sunday. This is a map/sign at a mall that I went to after the tacos.

Note all the fun that the mall has.

09-24-2019

 

 Finally went to my PE class for the first time in two weeks! We ran laps around the tennis court, did warm up exercises, and then did a little bit of tai ji. I recognize the girl standing on the left, she has the same major as me and can speak Mongolian. My teacher is the man standing on his cell phone.

He said he lived in Arizona last year, I'm not sure for how long. He was wearing an ASU shirt. Our class had two rest periods, so during those times he tried to speak some English with me. I hope my classmates appreciate me because the longer he talks with me the less PE we all have to do :P

Overall, I actually don't mind the class. Sometimes I forget how nice it feels to move my body.

09-23-2019

 

Today's food! 

Beef fried rice (goin' back to the basics). I liked how this rice wasn't super oily.

 

Went to David again with the roomie today. This is the beef curry. We also ordered a fried chicken dish that I forgot to take a picture of. I had class at 7pm and we started eating just before 6:30pm, so I had to rush a bit.

09-22-2019

 

Ate some American food. Was not my choice, but was actually surprised by how good it was, especially the tacos. Even though I don't know why they put a taco shell in a tortilla. 

The burger was good, but the bread was unusual. It was softer and fluffier than usual hamburger buns. I liked it, though. And luckily it wasn't sweet like a lot of bread in China.

The salsa (behind the tacos on the right side) tasted...different. I don't know what ingredient was either extra or missing (probably missing). Salsa back home is definitely better. And they definitely did not give enough for the number of chips on the plate. 

There were also fries that are not pictured, and they were pretty good.

09-21-2019

 

Students in what looked like traditional Mongolian clothes practicing a dance

I don't know if they were actually Mongolian or not.

My class actually has some Mongolian students, like Mongolians raised in China, so they are bilingual and can speak both Chinese and Mongolian. But my Mongolian classmate (actually from the country Mongolia) says that their Mongolian is a little different from the Mongolian spoken in Mongolia.

09-20-2019

 

Looking doooooooown the stairwell. This is in the building where I have the majority of my classes. I actually don't know how many floors there are (at least 10, I think?) because the highest floor I go to is 7. Even though I always take the stairs, it never gets any easier. Warms me up, though.

I was thinking today, honestly, I have probably walked more in China in one month than the entire time I lived in Temple. This is one of the reasons I like China (although things might have been similar if I had gone to a large public university in the United States).

09-19-2019

Roommate and I ordered 烤鱼 (roasted fish) delivery for lunch! It didn't seem very 考 (roasted) to us, but it still tasted good.

09-18-2019

 

A piece of my super oily youtiao 油条 (click the Chinese characters to go to the Wikipedia page!) that I bought for breakfast but mostly ate for lunch since I was running late and had to get to class. It also came with soy milk to drink. You can see that my fingers are shiny from the oil! I think I'll try youtiao from other places to compare and see if the oil is always this bad.

09-17-2019

 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY HEART?? Just kidding. I asked Dr. Sojo and she said this happens sometimes, and that healthy people don't need to worry. I think I am healthy, and I trust her and her knowledges.

This is the only picture I have from today. I went with a group of international students to apply for a residence permit today. We had our health check (this paper) last week, but I just got the results today (although it's not like I really 'got' my results, they were just given to me as part of the paperwork needed for the residence permit).

09-16-2019

 

Pond on the south campus. Sat on a bench here and ate lunch today because it was nice outside. Maybe too nice, it was hot and I was sweating. 

09-15-2019

hotpot with the roomie

09-14-2019

 

Although I'm sure there's more going on here than meets the eye, seeing places like this gives me hope.

09-13-2019

 黄街

Street with restaurants, bars, and some foreign (?) food

Roomie and I went to the 'Russian' restaurant..

 

And spent a lot of money 😅 Food was good, though!

 

Sunset

09-12-2019

 

Due to technical (read: electrical) difficulties, today's pictures are pictures of pictures. (And no, electrical difficulties are not from the rain. It's just rain, no thunderstorms.)

There was a class election today! I have no idea what the positions were and I maybe understood one complete sentence from the campaign speeches, but I still voted 😅 It was actually kind of fun to watch!

 

Tonight's dinner, one of my favorites, 红烧茄子 (eggplant braised in soy sauce). I like this restaurant. And the owner seems to like me (I think?? idk it was only my second time eating there).

09-11-2019

 

My English class roster. Here's a challenge - find me!

 

Not much rain today, but still cloudy and wet.

 

There are two brothers from Ukraine in one of my evening classes and since one of them can speak English fairly well, he talks to me in English (but I try to respond in Chinese if I can). Today after this particular class, I returned to my dorm and accidentally started talking to my roommate in English, which she doesn't know very well. This is is her reading an English textbook that she had from a past class to take a break from studying Chinese. xD

Also, if you want to test an English learner's pronunciation skills, have them read these words out loud: keys, kiss, kids.

09-10-2019

 

More campus pictures today.

So I think this might be the largest classroom building on the north campus, but turns out it is not the main classroom building. I think it's the technology majors building.

 

Walking on the north campus, on the way to my evening class :c I now have evening classes every day (Mon-Fri) that I didn't know about until late last week..

 

view of the technology majors building through the trees

 

Before class.

Big difference in the look and feel of this building versus the one I go to on the south campus...the north campus one is noticeably older.

09-09-2019

 

Winter has arrived

Mostly a joke, but it rained here all day today and it cooled things down a good 20 degrees. The high was probably around 60F? Very comfortable. Except for the wet shoes and socks. 

This picture was taken on the north campus.

 

On my way to lunch. Taken on the south campus.

 

On the south campus. This is the building where all of my major classes are, except gym.

 

A lone cyclist and more of the south campus

Empty classroom before my next class. 

Say cheese for the cameras in the back.

 ..and in the front!

I actually have this textbook now, but at the time I thought it would be a good idea to take pictures of my classmate's textbooks to try and 'catch up'. It's a little hard for me to read some of the handwriting. Most prominently, I can tell that the upper right in blue is a list of names (Lu Xun, Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping).

09-08-2019

 

Poll: is this a beetle or a roach? Or neither?

Story: went to sleep rather early yesterday for a Saturday (before 11pm), and when my roommate woke up today she told me she didn't sleep well because she killed upwards of 15 of these bugs last night. I thought they were beetles and didn't understand the big deal but my roommate thinks they are roaches.We haven't had them before, they just all of a sudden started appearing last night. 

And it's funny because most of them have been near her and her stuff. She's had a few on her bed which makes her uneasy but I haven't had any buggie friends in mine...not sure whether I'm grateful or jealous.

Turns out that other people in our dorm have them in their rooms as well. One student told us that these bugs live on the trees nearby and have started to migrate (although she said from south to north?? I'm not sure about that..).

Roomie and I ate lunch at this nearby restaurant called something along the lines of David['s?] Curry House. We have ordered takeout from here before, and we call the restaurant 'David' for short. She has a little trouble with the name David, I think because it has a 'V' in it since most people (Chinese and foreigners) have trouble with my English name (except for the ones who have a Valeria equivalent in their language, then they usually just call me that).

Back to the picture, no, my roommate and I did not order the mashrooms with rice. Another dish on a different page had the word mushrooms spelled correctly. Sometimes I think it would be fun to have a job editing menus and signs for mistakes like this.

09-07-2019

 

Mmm, fresh dandruff.

 

肉夹馍 (rou jia mo). One webpage I saw translated this into English as 'Chinese hamburger'...I personally don't agree with that translation.

When ordering something with meat it's very common to not get a lot...despite that, this was still tasty! Much better than the one I tried yesterday, which was too salty and dry. 

 

I think every floor in my dorm has a kitchen (but I'm honestly not sure because I live on the second floor and have only been up to the third floor, I think there are about six or seven floors total in this building?). Anyways, this is a picture of the kitchen on my floor. I'd be fine with trying to cook, but I would want to buy a rice cooker, a knife, and a pan first.

09-06-2019

  

All my pictures from today look like this, meaning they are all of lecture powerpoint slides. I'll try to take more interesting pictures tomorrow.

 

My new friends!

09-05-2019

Did not take any good pictures today so here are some crappy pictures...of my bathroom! Yay.

 

Milk snack I referenced yesterday. It's good. Naisu is nice-su