Well well well... seeing as how this is my first blog EVER! I guess I should explain the reasons in which I decided to start a blog. I have been living in Nanchang now for about 4 months working as an English teacher at Blue Sky University. The first few months flew by so fast that I was unable to start and even think about starting a blog. However now that it's almost Spring Festival and I have some time off before teaching again, I figured why not start a blog and finish out the year with a place to remember my adventures here. So this is my reason for writing. It has been a crazy semester so far. I sort of wish that I would have been able to have begun this before I left, but I can't dwell on that and need to look to my future adventures here (in China it's always an adventure).
So where to begin. I am currently unable to leave my apartment, once again, due to sickness. Normally in the States, I rarely get sick, but something in China allows me to get sick at least once a month in random ways. I have already been confined to my apartment due to an incident involving acupuncture in which I was unable to walk for a few days. I also have been to a Chinese hospital because of an unfortunate incident involving a hot water bottle, a plug, an electrical spark, and my finger. (What a way to spend New Years Eve!) And this is just another random ailment to add, however it's only a cold so I guess it's not as bad.
I spent my last few weeks off of work traveling around China. On January 3rd, I left with three of my teammates and another CTF'er for Xiamen in Fujian province. Laura, Aaron, Jonathan, Andy and I took a cab to the train station and were off for a week on our own. Although it was weird that we were leaving our other teammates who were going off in different directions, it was nice to get out of Nanchang for a while. My trip was INTERESTING to say the least. I loved getting out of the city and seeing new places. If you know me at all then you would know that I love to travel. But this time, for some random reason, I was sick in some form or another, the Entire trip. This includes the second half of our trip which was spent in Nanjing in Jiansu province. The second half of the trip was a bit different though. Laura headed back to Nanchang and Andy left us to meet his team in Guangzhou, so I was left with the boys. Traveling with the guys is a bit different than traveling with the girls. On our team of seven, the boys are always outnumbered in every situation but here, I was on the other side. It wasn't bad in any way, just the odds were against me on this trip. I rather enjoyed it, no drama or complaining, but just A LOT of walking. I usually don't mind walking too much but in 30 degree weather, I'm not going to lie, I'd rather take a taxi. But overall my trip was great. I enjoyed the beautiful sights and warm weather of Nanjing. As well as the amazing ocean! It is so strange to go from seeing the ocean on a semi-daily basis to going over 4 months without it. The city was definitely more modernized than Nanchang, but Nanchang is home and I was happy to come back here. Nanjing was just an entirely different feel than Nanjing. The city is full of history and museums and tourist traps, places that cost way too much money and not worth the sights. It was cold though, but the cold was worth it just for STARBUCKS!!!! Yeah, no bucks in Nanchang or coffee shop type feeling places, so it was good to go out and just relax in a bucks for a few hours. I was tired of Western food by the end though, so I was ready to come back and have some real Chinese dishes again. I'm not going to lie, Nanchang's food is excellent and very inexpensive, which makes it taste even better.
I'm going to try to update this thing as much as I can, which will probably only be once a week or so, and I'm going to try to get all my sweet pictures on here so ya'll can see what I'm up to.