Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai Expo, Fuzhou, Harbin

Okay. It's been about two weeks since I last posted. Sorry about the lateness, but my internet was spotty in Fuzhou. To make up for it, I'll try to post an extra long post today before I start my Chinese homework.

To give you a quick rundown of the rest of my China tour first. I bought pearls in Wuxi and ate their famous marinated steamed pork. I bought a silk blanket from the silk capital of the world in Suzhou--a place that is also known for its beautiful women because all of the women stayed indoors making silk rather than going outside and farming (where they would get tan). Suzhou also offers great freshwater fish from the Great Tai Lake. Hangzhou offers its famous Dragon Well Green Tea--the best quality is always from the spring harvest, and we bought some of it. A woman who majored in Tea in college also provided a demonstration of the antioxidant effects of green tea. If you pour iodine onto rice, it will obviously turn the rice black, and you cannot rinse out the color with water. However, with a splash of green tea, the rice removed all traces of the iodine from the rice. It was amazing and convinced me even more of how awesome tea is. I also believe I went on three consecutive boat rides during this time visiting the beautiful lakes and canals of the three cities.

Our last major stop was in Shanghai for the Shanghai Expo 2010. For those unfamiliar with what a World Expo is, you may have heard of the St. Louis Expo around the turn of the 20th century when the US literally transplanted a Philippine village in the middle of St. Louis for people to gawk at. Basically the World Expo is a giant museum-fair where countries will sponsor a pavilion--many will build a building and house cultural marvels from their country (or in the US's case, a business fair with Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and other companies). Lines to get into some pavilions are literally hours. For Japan and Saudi Arabia, the estimated wait time is over 4 hours. For China's second floor exposition, it is well over 6 or 7 hours. But people will literally bring stools and sit in line just to experience these pavilions. Personally, I found the Expo way too crowded at over 400,000 visitors a DAY!!!

Next stop was my family's hometown in Fuzhou. Because it is monsoon season currently in Southeast China, I didn't do much but play 5 hours of mahjong everyday. I would win over 200 RMB on some days (my highest winning was 289 RMB), but on other days I would lose almost 200 (192 was my biggest loss). I think all in all, I came out of the mahjong marathon winning around 20 RMB (less than 4 US dollars).

I returned to Beijing to meet up with my Harbin program where we ate at a pretty fun pizza restaurant. It offered pizza of all different varieties from a 老北京 (Old Beijing--it was literally peking duck on pizza) to Meat Lovers. I also met some cool graduate students from NYU and their guide from the Chinese Foreign Affairs University. We took a night train to Harbin. The interesting thing was that it was a sleeper train that went through the night. We had four bunk-beds to a small cabin, and it was actually pretty comfortable with private TV's and reading lights.

Harbin is currently some of the strangest weather I have ever experienced. On some days, it is over 90 degrees and on other days it is down to 50 with thunderstorms. Mind you, I have only been here for 4 days, and everyone from Harbin I have spoken with have said similar things.

My roommate (同屋) is 王思霖， and she is one of the nicest girls ever. I had a minor cut on my foot, and she took m to buy band-aids. The store only sold non-waterproof ones, which I didn't care and bought some. Then a few hours later, I was preparing to go out and explore town with friends, and she came up to me with waterproof band-aids saying that it was going to rain. She also handed me an umbrella， which I was really grateful for because it started pouring about halfway through our exploring. I also come back to the dorm to find sliced watermelons, bubble tea, yogurt, and other goodies waiting for me on my desk from her. However, I don't know how to politely tell her that I really don't need all this stuff, and I've just been eating it all when it shows up.

I'll post more next week as classes continue. Today is only the first day, so I don't have much to say about classwork yet.