Dear Xanga,

      Ok yalls, so I've been in China for about 2 1/2 months now and all I've been doing is posting pics. of how beautiful China is.  But there's A LOT more to China than gardens, pagodas, mountains, bootleg DVD's etc.  As with any foreign country, you encounter something known as "CULTURE SHOCK."   And China is one of those countries where if you're like me...from the "Sweet land of liberty" the U.S.of A., you're not going to be just SHOCKED...you're going to be "Culturally RATTLED & ROLLED!"  So let me tell you about some of my experiences...

1a. First day I come to China, my fellow W&M students tell me "you're gonna need a bike."  bc in China, a bike is your car...you need it to get to class and anywhere else (unless you walk, cab/subway it).  Well...since everyone on campus has a bike, and there's about 30,000+ students on campus, it's not rare to be caught in "bicycle jam."  It's to the point where you have to get off your bike and walk with it bc there's too many ppl. with their bikes on the street.   
1b. It's possible to get into a bike accident...dear GOD i wish i had my helmet.  Chinese ppl. aren't just CRAZYYYY in cars, they're CRAZYYYY on bikes as well.  Everyday, I'm inches away from running into another biker or pedestrian...thank GOD for the invention of bicycle brakes.

2. This leads me to another point...Chinese drivers are absolutely INSANE!! And you thought NYC cab drivers were bad...you ain't seen NOTHING yet if you haven't been in a CHINESE cab.  I don't know why China has traffic laws or driver's licenses at all!! It's not like anyone follows them.  OH yeah and another thing.  In America, the pedestrian ALWAYS, ALWAYS has the right of way BUT in China, you're dead meat if you think to cross the street...cars don't slow down ONE BIT and who cares if the cross walk sign is lit up...cars keep driving anyway.  When I was in Shanghai, my arm got hit by the side view mirror of a moving car!  OK, it was only going like 2 mph but STILLL!!! Who does that happen to??  I was like  what just happened? 

3. Chinese men like to walk around with their shirts lifted up...leaving their pot-bellies and man-boobs to be seen by everyone!  And Chinese men & women just hawk loogies everywhere on the street...I'm surprised I haven't been hit with one thus far.  Let's just hope it stays that way!! I want to be loogie-free

4. China lacks the plethora of food choices we Americans have back home.  I've been eating AUTHENTIC, Chinese food...none of that kung pao chicken, lo mien stuff...(ahem liv) and since everything is pretty much FILLED w/ MSG, everything tastes really yummy!  But I've been eating it for 2 1/2 months now...I just want anything BUT Chinese food.  To satisfy my craving, I went off campus to eat non-Chinese food.  First thing I see is a KFC.  I go inside...there's no CHICKEN!!  Everyone around me is eating either dumplings or noodles.  So I'm like  but then I think, well they'll at least have soda but NOPE...they only have soy milk and tea.  So I look outside thinking I'm in the wrong bldg. but sure enough...there's Colonel Sanders and the big KFC letters right next to him.  Ohhhh CHINA!!!  But all this talk of food has made me crave for the following: a NICE,  FRESH salad from Foco de Ciao, Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwich combo w/ frosty, Moby Dick House of Kabob-chicken & rice, Sweet Water Tavern-baby back ribs and ozzy rolls, 4 Season's-Sunday morning brunch, New Orlean's Steakhouse-juicy, rib-eye steak, Woo Rae Oak-kalbi & mae eun tang, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal & MILK, my mommy's cookin, etc. etc.  writing it all out makes me feel like I just ate all these things so sorry if it was a lot to read  

5. People spit their food directly onto the table at the cafeterias.  If they don't like what they're eating, it just ends up on the table.  They need a separate "fuwuyuanr" aka: worker, to walk around with a bucket and rag to get all the ronchy in the ponchy junk off the table. 

6. You have to carry around your own toilet paper and napkin bc these things are not provided in public bathrooms or restaurants...well some rest. will give you a napkin but it's most likely only one thin, square sheet. 

But other than the people, foods, small things I miss back home...I'm still loving China!  I love Chinese and I enjoy the new experiences I encounter everyday.  And now, instead of thinking ??  I just chuckle and say..."Oh~ CHINA!"    

Dear Xanga,

Here are some more pics. from my Study Tour and from other places that I've visited on my own...China is sooooooo BEAUTIFUL!  Everyone should come here to visit   Enjoy yalls! (p.s. haynes, what's your new site? send it to me in an email if you're paranoid of other ppl. stalking u, ok?)

Fishing out a lotus flower petal from the pond in one of Suzhou's MAGNIFICIENT Gardens!

             I took this picture...doesn't it look so cool?


         Lotus Flowers...they're GOHGEOUS dahling...GOHGEOUS!!

Sitting on a zig-zag pathway, created to keep evil spirits out

Various stages of silk worms at the #1 Silk Factory... fun fact: George Bush wore a traditional Chinese-style robe made from this factory on his visit to China

Silk worms and their doo-doo...HEHE

Process of extracting silk fibers from the silk worm's cocoon

                             
                Can you see the silk threads being extracted?  Cool right?

              
Me & workers stretching out silk threads that will later be converted into fabric for human consumption

Next to the Great-Wall, this river is considered China's greatest man-made creations, very important for commerce and transporting goods within China.

Me piggy-back riding a statue...this statue commemorates the men who built this river

 
The leaning Tower of China...older than the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy

At a clay teapot factory...this is HUGE!

Me & Chinese actor...p.s his beard is fake in case u were wondering

More Chinese performers at a Suzhou Performance hall.

They have a saying in China:  "If you want to see China's past, go to Xi'an; if you want to see China's present go to Beijing; if you want to see China's future go to Shanghai"  This is a model representation of Shanghai at Shanghai's Exhibition Center...sooooo COOL!

It's hard to tell in this picture, but these are all models of buildings and other landmarks in Shanghai...each building is so intricately designed and modeled to look like the real thing!! They even put bushes and water and trees just to make it that much more realisitc!

Me on a simulation boat ride...I was captain of my ship for the day

In the main lobby of the Shanghai Exhibition Center

The famous "Pearl Tower" in Shanghai

The famous "Pearl Tower" and other corporate buildings

The "Bund" in Shanghai...the architecture of these buildings is magnificient!

This is a hand-painted t-shirt of "xiongma" aka: Panda Bear.  I also had the artist paint Emma's name so she can wear it with the panda-bear back pack I got her

These were some CRAZY koi I saw at a garden in Shanghai...I even got to touch one and it felt so slimy!!   I wish the koi in my pond would come out and play with me...they always hide under rocks

Once I got back from my study-tour, I got a HUGE box filled with these goodies from my BABY   He made a note of all the things I didn't have in China and sent them to me   beginning from the top left corner:  1.) Nemo pillow (bc I always sleep with 2 pillows but I only had 1 pillow in my dorm room), 2.) One of my favorite pics. of my baby blown up and signed to look like an autographed picture (signed by yours truly), 3.)school supplies (ie: loos-leaf paper bc they don't sell any in China, folder, pens, index cards, and sticky-notes), 4.) some magazines ("O" bc I can't get my daily dose of Oprah in China), 5.) candy (my FAVORITE JELLY BELLY!!), 6.) an alarm clock (bc I didn't bring one), 7.) toothbrush, lotion, chapstick, venus razors, bandaids, and last but DEFINITELY not least 8.) Portable DVD PLAYER w/ LCD Monitor!!!   (He surprised me BIG time with this one...I guess he thought I'd need one to watch all the DVD's I had bought in China)... isn't he AMAZING?!?!  I LOVE U RONNY RON!!!

At Yihe Yuan "Summer Palace" in Beijing...one of the most BEAUTIFUL places!!! This is one of the many gardens which members of the Imperial family would come to...think of it as a summer home for the rulers of the Qing Dynasty  

Many beams of palaces and pagodas are intricately painted like this...

Hahahaha!! If you walk around China, you'll see almost all the babies wearing either a.) no pants, or b.) pants with a MAJOR opening in the butt...aparently the Chinese don't believe in diapers so they just spread the pants and let the babies do their thang out in the public...

This is an "illegal" picture bc no cameras were allowed, but I didn't see the sign until AFTER I took it

The famous "long corridor" 

I walked the entire stretch of this bridge and it was amazing!

Just before our long journey across the bridge

Finally on the bridge...posing next to a lion head

I took a boat across the water to get to the other side of Yihe yuan, and I was welcomed by what seemed like acres upon acres of lotus flowers and plants...I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was

Dorothy and I walked forever!! But we were surrounded by such GOHGEOUS scenery

It may not seem like it but it was a LONG ways up to that hill.

It reminded me of the scene from "The Last Emperor"

This is a Buddhist Temple at the top of the hill...as you can see, many of the heads near the bottom have been taken off...

Inside a hide-out at the top of the hill...I felt like I could see all of Beijing from the top!

One more picture before climbing all the way down...

Ok I'll post more later...I miss everyone!! Take care

Dear Xanga,

I finally found a site that allowed me to upload some of the MANY, MANY pictures I have taken in China.  I have yet to upload my pictures from the Beijing Zoo but for now, enjoy some of my other unforgettable ventures in China

 
                      Buddhist Temple in Hangzhou

          Scary lookin statues - People worship them out of fear!

          "The Humble Administrator's Garden" in Tong Li

                 Peek-a-boo!

                              On a boat in Tong Li

             On a bicycle carriage after our boat ride

 Our bicycle-carriage driver...he's got some STRONG legs!

Dear Xanga!

HELLO!!!  It has taken forever long but now I have INTERNET in my room!  *YAY*!!! "Wo FEICHANG gaoxing!"   No more electronic problems...OK!!! I can FINALLY upload my pics. from my study tour  But I'm not able to upload all of them so bare with me as I do some at a time, k?  Enjoy!!   

On the train to Xi'an...we got sleepers! and I felt like we were going to run off the tracks 

Binmayong aka: "Terra-Cotta Soliders" in Xi'an

Xi'an City Wall...my camera captured us girls AFTER we landed, doesn't it look like we had so much fun jumping?  

Look at all the steps I had to climb to get to the top of the wall?  If my *thunder thighs* don't go away after spending all this time in China...I dunno WHAT WILL

Eating "Huo Guo" aka: Hot Pot... you get individual pots filled with boiling water, and you put thinly sliced pieces of meat to cook into the "hot pot" and a whole bunch of other stuff... so *yummy in my tummy*

I went to this dept. store in Xi'an and there was this Buddha statue on the ground floor... 

This is the dept. store with the Buddha...it was a gazillion stories high.  I was like *WHOA*!!  (HEHE)

The BEAUTIFUL, BREATHTAKING Li River in Guilin...

Random cows along the Li River

Reg, this is what I was talking about...isn't it FASCINATING?  How do they balance on that little bamboo raft?

Ancient Cave in Guilin...don't be deceived by the cool colors...they're neon lights

On a ship in Hangzhou right before a major TYPHOON!!!!  

Tea Farm in Hangzhou...this is where the BEST GREEN TEA comes from

Demonstration of how to prepare tea leaves after they are dried, before they are packaged for drinking  Green Tea in Chinese = "lu cha"

I'm tempted to sing "I'm a little tea pot..." but as yalls can see, it is NOT little!

Pagoda in Hangzhou...sorry guys for having the picture sideways...but it's good neck exercise for yalls  

Statue in front of the pagoda...I'm imitating her~ can ya tell?  HEHE

I climbed MANY, MANY flights of stairs to get to the top...

...but once I reached the TOP, the view was INCREDIBLE and SOOOO worth climbing
Another view from the top...

I risked my LIFE by hanging myself out of a window to carve this onto one of the roof tiles of the pagoda...it says "2005, RJ+CC="ai" with a BIG HEART around it ("ai" = love for Chinese)  see babe...this is how much i LOVE u!!!

I'm eating a leg-of-mutton...it's HUGE!!!! I had to bite it so hard to rip the meat off...oh I felt like such a carnivore  *roar*

This is me pretending to kiss a chicken's head ... it was still attached to the body when it came to the table, but we ripped it off

...and this would be the chicken's feet...claws still intact

Ok yalls...these represent about 1/5 of the pics. I took but I can't upload anymore til later so more to come... 'til next time...ZAIJIAN!!