6/10/07 - Caroline

Hello all! I miss you guys sooooooo much, but luckily yall have kept me up to date on the latest US happenings...ie what yall are doing.

So I just got back from Hangzhou, China. Its a small little city with only 7 million people about 2 hours south of Shanghai. When we got there, we went and ate at this supposedly famous hotel. It was ok, the usual Chinese fanfare. Afterwards, we went to this Buddhist temple. In one room, there were these 4 kings, supposed to represent the North, South, East and West. Ironically, They were placed in this order: North South West East, no directions at all. Then there was this other room with over 500 buddhas in it. And somebody was having a buddhist wedding ceremony. Interesting.

We also had this tour guide, not cute, Chinese, around 35. He asked all the girls for their emails and told them he loved them! ewwww!

THen we went to Dragon Well Tea Plantation. They produce all of the tea that is the national product of China. We randomly ran into a girl from UVA. WEIRD! They did a whole tea ceremony for us. THe girl was going on and on about how this is only the finest quality tea, no pesticides, no chemicals. As she says this, a little grasshopper crawls out of my cup!! Not to worry, i was unphased and drank it anyways. I am such a trooper. And I was cracked out and laughing hysterically, the teacher kept shooting me dirty looks because I couldnt control myself. More on the subject of bugs, so the Hussinator had a cockroach in her room the other day and FREAKED out. She came to my room crying hysterically. So I had to go kill the bug and throw it away. It was pretty much out of control.

Then we went and ate dinner at this other "famous" restuarant. Someone found a milipede in their soup. I don't think it was supposed to be like that.

Today we toured around a lake and climbed a pagoda. It was fun. I saw a lady holding her kid over a garbage can, he was pooing.

I didn't go out this weekend. Well, I tried to Friday night but one girl was having a depression episode ie craving attention so I took her back and didn't get to go the the really fun club. apparently it had a climbing wall.

Saturday night, I was too pooped to go out, but one of the girls on our program made out with a german. he didn't speak english, she doesn't speak german. my friend colin got the number of a chinese girl. she later sent him a text message asking "why you not spkin me?" oooo my!

We just got back to Shanghai and my roommate and I went and worked out. She has taken me on as her own personal project. She runs track at UVa and claims I too can have abs of steel. HAHAHAHA. Well anyways, we were sitting in this grass (really prickly grass by the way) doing ab stuff, and i turn over and notice two people wrestling in the grass. Only, they weren't wrestling, they were making out! heavy necking, petting, he grabbed her ass, her shirt was coming off. I took a look around the little area and noticed EVERYONE was getting it on! There were like 12-15 couples! It was soooo weird! We decided to cut our workout short and go back to dorms.

Well, tomorrow Gene Block is coming to China, so I need to go pick out something to wear for the "ceremony"

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer! Keep the emails going! Allison Crowe, you never emailed me back!!

SMOOCHES!

Caroline