May 21, 2014
Photo 1: Kim, Conley, Steven, me, Hochiang at Sculpting In Time Café for lunch!
Photo 2: Johnny working his calligraphy J
Photo 3: Steven, Conley, Molly, Luther, Jimmy, Kim at the Korean Restaurant for dinner!
Photo 4: Post-dinner hangout: ripping apart coconuts!
This morning when I came down to the lobby of Xiyuan, I was sad to see that there was no one sitting at Momentum before class. It was such a popular spot for us the first week of class. Oh well L. After buying water and banana chips (my new favorite snack for class), I had a cup of rice gruel for 1 块 from the Xiyuan cafeteria. I love having this for breakfast because it helps clean out my system, but it doesn’t quite fill me up. Next thing you know, Bobo comes in with two cups of rice gruel in her hand. She probably loves it more than I do.
Today marks the midpoint of taking classes here at Nanjing University. One of the classes I had was 汉语口语 (han yu kou yu), in which each lesson is broken into four sections; today we were doing a 讨论 (tao lun) about illnesses. My professor made a funny observation: there are always fewer students when it came time for the discussions for each lesson. Nevertheless, my class of eleven students had a discussion about our personal experiences with sicknesses and treatment, as well as, SARS and 禽流感 (qin liu gan, “bird flu”), two illnesses that greatly affected China in the past.
For lunch, some of us headed to Sculpting In Time Café (pictured), the same place we had ended our scavenger hunt, Mystery Nanjing, this past Saturday. I’m not quite sure how others felt about their food, but I ordered a club sandwich and it tasted so yummy. It was expensive compared to our usual lunches for less than 10 块, but I thought it was worth it for 40 块 (roughly $6.50)! Steven and Conley also ordered Coke floats, which looked amazing!
Hochiang and I left to attend our 1:30pm HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) 5 Comprehension class, but once again it was cancelled. Last week it was because there was a competition, but this time it was because the professor wanted to give the students a break since they had just taken the HSK. I usually never take naps, but I decided to because I caught onto 帅哥’s (shuai ge, a.k.a. Steven) mild sickness from the previous week.
I woke up just in time to attend my 3:40pm HSK 5 Listening class and I even had enough time to purchase an ice cream cone from the convenience store! J It was Hochiang, me, and one other student in class. Again, the professor gave us the option to cancel class because it was just the three of us. However, we decided to take the class and do some practice listening, which was very helpful to me since I’m contemplating taking the HSK when I return to the States.
Bobo, Hochiang, Luther, Molly, and I played some Frisbee and soccer for a while before the optional calligraphy class at 7pm. The calligraphy teacher taught us one major technique of writing, which consisted of rounded corners with the same width of the strokes. We practiced on brown paper and when we felt we were ready, we wrote our characters on rice paper. I wrote the characters 玉兰 (yu lan), which is “magnolia” in English. The magnolia flower is symbolic of some valuable memories I have had during my past two years at Northeastern. Jimmy and Rebecca were especially good with their techniques and Molly was quite creative with the characters she wrote.
Some of us went for a short run on the track and for dinner, we decided to try the Korean restaurant in an alley that Alex had recommended the previous night. It was authentic in a way that we got to sit on the floor to eat, but the food itself wasn’t exactly authentic. The kimchi pancakes tasted like heaven though. Molly and Conley decided to purchase coconuts at the fruit stand around the restaurant. Molly’s coconut tasted bland, but Conley’s tasted sweet. After telling the fruit stand owner that her coconut wasn’t sweet for a few minutes, Molly received a free coconut! They had a great time trying to tear apart the coconut for the inside.
Have a good night J
- Judy
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