As I chugged my green tea latte this morning, thinking about how I was going to update my family on my month long travel study program in Shanghai, I decided I might as well continue posting on the blog I had during my junior year abroad in Beijing. So, yeah!
The plane ride was thankfully uneventful; from time to time I'd chat with the Chinese people sitting next to me, who were fascinated with the whole I-look-white-but-speak-Mandarin-with-no-accent thing. Getting out of the airport was painless, even with the man who tried convincing me that my $40 was too little to exchange and that he'd be happy to give me more money than the airport would. Unfortunately, someone else got the taxi driver who was blasting Lil Uzi Vert, but the cab driver I got ended up being an angel sent from heaven (I'll explain soon).
I was dropped off at my hotel (where I needed to stay because my flight was a day early) for which I'd found on booking.com for $25 because it appeared to be only hotel under $100 anywhere near East China Normal University that had wifi. I approached the front counter and the situation immediately looked dismal, as the concierge, who looked younger than me, immediately turned me away. I left the hotel and walked around in a mild state of panic. Luckily, Sprint has low speed international data, so I was able to use WeChat (basically a social media app that has a monopoly over social media in China) to contact the program TAs, Tang and Wei, who, in about 20 minutes, rescued me.
We went back to the hotel where I booked a reservation and it turned out to be a hotel that didn't allow foreigners to stay there. Tang, Wei, and I started to go next door to another hotel. On the way, a man on a motorcycle yelled in our direction, presumably offering us a ride, and we kept shooing off his persistent yelling. We went into the other hotel which also refused foreigners. Tang, Wei, and I stood outside the hotel, not completely sure on what to do. The motorcycle man started walking towards us with something in his hand. I looked to see what it was and about died; it was my passport. I looked at the man's face and realized that it was my taxi driver from the airport!! He handed me my passport, looking at me with utter dismay. It felt like god was disappointed in me. And dad, I know you're inclined to rip me a new one, but just know that the crippling embarrassment I felt under the glare of the driver hurts tenfold.
Wei and Tang found me a new hotel, on campus. We walked there through campus, which was beautiful. I commented as such, and Tang explained to me that ENCU is considered the most beautiful college campus in the Far East. He also described a bike app called Mobike, where you can rent a bike for 1 yuan (15 cents) for a half hour. You just open the app, which will display any unused gps-chipped bikes nearby, find the closest bike and rent it, and then drop it off wherever your destination is. Is that not genius????? Anyway. We got to the hotel, which Tang and Wei did not realize was actually the dorms I'm staying in for the summer until the concierge told us so, so basically I got to move in a day early. Once I settled in, I crashed at about 9 pm, woke up at 3 am, and went back to bed at 5am once the Benadryl kicked in. This morning I walked to the line of stores outside campus and bought shampoo and conditioner, a green tea latte, and my favorite street food, shou zhua bing, which very roughly translates to "pancake held in hand."
I'm about to go look for a place to work out, which I haven't done in a month, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers. All and all, it's good to be back!
