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鼓浪屿

China day in the life exploring 厦门 Friends NSLI-Y 厦门 Yesterday, we were given the privilege to go to the most famous tourist spot in all of 厦门。 鼓浪屿 is a small island that you can see from 厦门大学. On preview NSLI-Y 厦门 programs, they never scheduled for the students to visit this island, because they always expect the host families to take the children. But last year a lot of host families didn't take the participants; therefore, this year they decided to take us as a treat. We rented an entire charter bus for a 15 minute ride. Even though the ride was so short, I still fell asleep. I woke up when the bus stopped at a drop off place 5 minutes away from the ferry dock. We walked to the dock and the chaperones passed out our passports and tickets. We put our bag through a scanned, since at all public transportation requires security checks. It was pretty simple but apparently one person in our group, Leo who happens to be from Maryland as well, forgot to pick up his bag after security check. Once through security and check in, we waited for the ferry to arrive. The sign above the platform over the water said "no jaywalking"; like people have jaywalked across the ocean.

The ferry came at the perfect timely. The entire ride we had a perfect view of the city and sunset. The clouds looked like cotton candy creating the PERFECT PICTURE. The ferry ride was literally 2 minutes long, like the wait to get on the ferry was longer than the actually ride.

Once on the island we divided into our 5 groups and walked around the island with our chaperones. Our group chaperone is Cai 老师. She is like a teenage; always on her phone. She even had to use 百度, which is China's google, to search how to get around 鼓浪屿. We made so many wrong turns forcing us to back track the way we came from. We walked along street shops selling a variety of things, from ice cream to pearls. I actually stopped to buy a pearl ring, which the chaperones help me bargain down to 50 元. We walked in a giant circle, which was suspected since we were on an island. We walked on the beach for 30 minutes then went to see embassies on the island (they were still in the making).

We all meet back at the ferry dock at 9:30 and hopped on the 9:45 ferry. Luckily Leo didn't have any bags to put through security or else I bet he would have lost it as well.  We rode on the ferry for 2 minutes again to get back to the main island. Then walked to the bus stop, rode the bus back to campus, then walked to our dorms.

Our curfew was at 10:30 that night, giving us 30 minutes to hang out with our friends. Dr. Lin (one of the chaperones) left today (Thursday) to return back to her home town. She is becoming a university teacher so she had to go back to wrap up a project she was working on with another professor. So when she came to check if we were in our rooms at 10:30, Sydney and I gave her a gift (just chocolates from America). She was so grateful and told us to WeChat her if we needed anything.

Famous building on 厦门大学

Today (Thursday, July 21) was another normal day of classes. Our new unit is about shopping so 杨老师 showed us how to use TaoBao (the Chinese amazon that has FREE 2 day shipping). During the lunch break, Skylar and I met up with one of the Chinese tutors we used to have named Lexie. We had lunch with her at the cafeteria. After that she showed us where the bookstore was because we wanted to look at cool 厦门大学 tshirts. We ended up not buying anything and just headed to culture class at 1:30. Since we have an oral proficiency test tomorrow, instead of a culture lecture we had time to prepare for it. Next I had Chinese paper cutting. I learned that our class switch off everyday so one day is Chinese knot tying and the next is Chinese paper cutting. Tutor time was normal, we just practiced pronunciation and more grammar.

Skylar, Lexie, and I

For dinner me and some friends went to the restaurant on the first floor of our dorms. I got sweet and sour pork and dumplings. We ate and then walked around the campus. Skylar and I went back to the bookstore and he bought a tshirt. I wanted to buy a 厦门大学 hat but I didn't like any at the bookstore. I ended up finding one in the Student Union building.

Tonight I finished packing because WE MOVE INTO OUR HOST FAMILIES TOMORROW!
The schedule tomorrow is:
Regular class 9-11:50
Lunch break 12-1:30
OPI 1:30-2:30
Interest groups 2:40-3:20
3:30 MEET OUR HOST FAMILIES
-we have a small ceremony to meet our host families
-around 4:30 we will move out of our dorms and leave....

I'm excited to move in with my host family but also nervous that it will be awkward and hard to communicated. I learned that my host family is pretty well off with 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms in their home. They also have a 15 year old daughter and a dog!!!