Operation Travel Bug Presents:

Date: Sunday, June 7, 2009
Time: 9:30 AM 4:15 PM

I was planning on posts this morning, but I could not establish connection to the blog.  For a while, I thought China blocked this site too, but apparently not.  They have blocked a lot of sites though – I have no access to YouTube, Flickr, or Myspace… not that I use the last two anyway.  If not for Facebook, I would die – DIE! =]  So here’s my post from this morning::

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So where have I been in the last few days?  Mostly crashing in my bed after going out for dinner.  I know it’s really bad, but I can’t help it.  Take yesterday for example, I was lying down trying to decipher mandarin television with my roommate, and the next thing I know, it’s morning.  We started classes here in Nanjing on Wednesday June 4th, 3 hours a day, 6 days a week.  Not really that bad when you think about it.

So far, Nanjing has been such an amazing place, with such great history.  Nanjing used to be a capital of China (“-jing” or “-king” meaning capital) for different periods of time in history.  In 1937, the Japanese had swept through the area and destroyed parts of the original city, killed the people, and raped the women.  During our time here, a visit to the Nanjing Massacre Museum will definitely happen.  Today, the area around which we are staying has many access points to places like the “34th Street, Herald Square” area of New York City.  A short walk can bring us to a large shopping stocked with fobby asian clothes (I’m tempted just to buy some before I come back to New York), and there is a street of restaurants up Hunan Road, where we can find a variety of food, from Korean Cuisine, Chinese Cuisine, and Indian Cuisine to places like McDonalds (we checked the menu already, it’s not that different from the McDonalds in New York, other than the fact that they sell corn.  Sorry to burst your bubbles, but no fried rice on the menu).

Nanjing has many small alleyways, where many shady local food vendors have set up shop.  Though the shops look rather suspicious, the experience of some of our group has been pretty well at those places.  Though I haven’t been to a food vendor yet, I did go out with some of the guys to a pretty local restaurant yesterday.  You can imagine how interesting it was for four non-mandarin speakers, who can’t read Chinese, to figure out what to get for dinner at a restaurant with an all-Chinese menu.  Phrase books to the aid!

There have also been many interesting differences between Nanjing and New York.  Some are listed below:

1. They have counters on their streetlights that tell you how long it will be until the light changes.
2. Cars don’t know the meaning of “Pedestrians First,” and will run you over if you get in their way.  That’s what makes crossing the streets here fun.
3. Bicycles are definitely more widely used as a mode of transportation here than in the U.S., so are motorbikes.
4. Dogs run around here without leashes.  They know to follow their owners and never seem to stray off on their own.
5. Food here really is pretty cheap.